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4 NEWS

The main stories...

What happened

The prison-release row

Andy Burnham promised to make renewed efforts to stop two men convicted of killing police officer Andrew Harper benefitting from the new early-release scheme. From October, around 5,000 inmates will start to be released ahead of schedule to ease chronic prison overcrowding. Last week, the PM banned rapists, serious sex offenders and criminals convicted of grooming offences from consideration while suggesting that further exclusions weren't possible. But on Tuesday, in response to a growing outcry, he said he was "increasingly confident" that officials would find other ways to free up capacity so that serious offenders such as PC Harper's killers could be kept in prison.

The row over prison releases in England and Wales came as the new PM, fresh from a holiday abroad with his family, prepared to embark on a "listening tour" of Britain. The Government's latest announcements include a proposal to tackle the cost of living by cracking down on rip-off deals and "subscription traps"; and to revive high streets by giving councils new powers to curb the spread of vape stores, betting shops and 24-hour adult gaming centres.

What the editorials said

This row has been a curious "own goal" by Burnham, said The Independent. When it emerged last month that the early-release scheme could lead to PC Harper's killers being freed (after serving half rather than two-thirds of their 13-year sentences for manslaughter), the PM responded by pausing the programme. But having reviewed the situation with ministers and civil servants, he then restarted it, excluding rapists and some other offenders but not those serving time for manslaughter, such as Harper's killers. He then went on holiday, only to have to backtrack on his return. Burnham messed up, agreed The Sun on Sunday. If he fumbled this long-telegraphed crisis, "how will he cope when a massive live emergency is thrown at him"?

PC Harper with his wife, Lissie

The public understandably has strong feelings about the appalling killing of PC Harper, who died after being dragged behind a car for over a mile, said the FT. But the Government's choices are severely constrained by the dire current level of prison overcrowding. The male prison estate in England and Wales is running at about 98% capacity, with fewer than 2,000 spaces left. Without early releases, the prison system could run out of room by November, "further gumming up the backlogged criminal justice system".

What happened

Stasis in the strait

Iran unveiled its extensive list of demands on Saturday for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran said that, although it was close to a deal with Oman to reopen some shipping lanes, no final agreement would be struck until the US lifts its naval blockade and sanctions on Iran; withdraws its military from Iran's vicinity; pays war reparations and releases frozen Iranian assets; and ceases its attacks on Iran's allies. In response, Donald Trump said that the US is currently only "semi-negotiating" with Iran, while it waits for economic pressure on the regime to tell.

Separately, it emerged that Trump had been the target of "a credible Iranian threat" to fire a surface-to-air missile at Air Force One, just before he left the Nato summit in Ankara last month. As a result, Trump boarded Air Force One, along with various senior officials and journalists, but was then smuggled – reportedly in the back of a catering truck – to an alternative jet.

What the editorials said

After more than five months, this conflict has settled into a "familiar pattern", said The Economist. When diplomacy fails to yield progress, both sides resume fighting; and "when bombs fail to break the deadlock, negotiations resume". In the past two weeks, Trump has yet again "talked up" the prospects of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, before yet again threatening to hit Iran "really hard". But the strait remains "mostly closed", with Iran in no mood to "surrender its new prize".

Ships in the strait this week

The Iranians' latest demands to reopen the strait are "outrageous but not surprising", said The Wall Street Journal. They have seen Trump back down from his threats "again and again", and will have read the reports suggesting that the US has "all but run out of certain types of long-range missiles". They will also know that US military chiefs are looking for an exit from the war. Trump vowed that it would end with regime change, said The Observer. Now, the best he can hope for before November's midterms is a reopening of the strait and "a return, in terms of trade and oil prices", to the status quo ante.

It wasn't all bad

The Great Barrier Reef has staged a better-than-expected recovery from mass bleaching events in 2024 and 2025, the Australian Institute of Marine Science has found. It said that coral cover on large parts of the reef had bounced back and was now at above-average levels, owing to monsoons bringing cooler water and extra cloud cover early this year. Scientists cautioned that climate change still threatens the reef; but said that it had shown a "remarkable ability to recover".

A rare turtle that washed up on a beach in Anglesey has embarked on the 5,000 journey home to the Gulf of Mexico. The critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle was found by a dog and its owner in December 2023, "cold stunned" and barely alive, having strayed out of its normal warm waters. Staff at Anglesey Sea Zoo spent the next two-and-a-half years

nursing it back to health, until it was deemed fit to go home. In an epic trip facilitated by conservationists and officials on both sides of the Atlantic, it flew by helicopter to Denham in Buckinghamshire, whence it was driven to Heathrow to catch a plane to Texas – prior to its release in the Caribbean Sea. Its keepers said that it belonged in the wild and that it was "emotional" to think of it returning there.

An Italian freediver exploring the seabed off the coast Sicily recently stumbled on the site of an ancient Roman shipwreck – and the 500 or so amphora that the vessel was transporting when it sank, some 2,000 years ago. Giacomo De Mola called finding the pile of ceramic jars, at a depth of 151ft, the "most incredible discovery of my life". The wooden ship itself had rotted away over the millennia, but archaeologists have been able to estimate that the vessel was about 89ft long and 20ft wide by measuring the distribution of its cargo.

© MARK LURE PHOTOGRAPHY, ANGLESEY SEA ZOO

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

COVER CARTOON: ANT BLADES

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...and how they were covered

NEWS 5

What the commentators said

Burnham is getting his “first taste of unpopularity” as PM, said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator, but in a very mild form. The prisons crisis is “still something Labour can legitimately blame on the Tories”; and Burnham can at least claim that he has tightened up the criteria set by the previous government for the early releases. The controversy has shed more light on the PM’s leadership style, said Lucy Fisher in the FT. Whereas Keir Starmer was inclined to dig in when controversies erupted, only to be forced into late U-turns, Burnham has proved nimbler in the face of this backlash, leaning “into the idea that he is responding to Britons’ outrage”.

The reality is that the country’s entire prison system is in a state of disarray, said Libby Brooks in The Guardian. The jail population of England and Wales has almost doubled since 1993, to 86,536 – one of the highest per capita populations in Western Europe. In a bid to look tough on crime, successive UK governments have driven up sentence lengths and then, owing to their failure to provide a commensurate expansion in prison places, “sought to undo the effect through early-release schemes”. This in turn has led to a rise in the number of unrehabilitated criminals being returned to prison after breaching the conditions of their release.

Britain confronts all manner of grave problems today, said David Frost in The Daily Telegraph. Yet what’s Burnham’s latest plan? To make it easier for people to cancel online subscriptions, and to crack down on the spread of vape shops. The “comically disproportionate” nature of these policies brings John Major’s “Cones Hotline” to mind. Rather than addressing the underlying causes of Britain’s dysfunction, Labour is seeking to ameliorate the symptoms with yet more regulation. Don’t knock that approach, said Rowena Mason in The Guardian. The PM is following the advice of the money-saving guru Martin Lewis, who called on the Government last year to find “100 small things that piss people off” and set about fixing them. By addressing people’s everyday frustrations, Burnham is hoping to lure voters back from Reform UK and build support for bigger, structural changes. Polls suggest the strategy is working.

What the commentators said

With its new list of demands, Tehran is playing a longer game, said Patrick Wintour in The Guardian. Iranian officials have never trusted the US; and since Trump sanctioned the killings of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qasem Soleimani (in 2020) and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (in February), their “animus” has been directed at him personally. By way of retribution, they now want to ensure that Trump’s Republicans fight the midterms “with no Iranian commitment on nuclear weapons, only a hefty economic bill for a failed war”. In so doing, they hope to inflict the same “ruinous blow on his presidency as Jimmy Carter suffered over the 1979-1981 US embassy hostage crisis”. Trump hopes to avoid this fate by further squeezing Iran’s war-ravaged economy, said Josh Boak and Fatima Hussein in The Washington Post/AP. But Tehran doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the threat of new sanctions, which in the short term may be less damaging to Iran than the closure of the strait is to the US.

Tehran is in no rush for a breakthrough, agreed Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper in The New York Times – not least because it’s currently doing a good job depleting US weapons supplies. By launching “waves of drones and missiles” at US bases in the region, it has forced America to burn through its Patriot interceptors at an alarming rate. Last month, the Americans fired 50 of these scarce missiles – which cost about $4m each – in a single day. Whatever happens next, said Gideon Rachman in the FT, Trump’s “amateurish and hubristic” decision to enter into this conflict will have negative “long-term consequences for US foreign and security policy”. Past administrations have carefully guarded American credibility, believing that whenever the US president spoke, the world should “take his words seriously”. By flip-flopping between bellicose threats to destroy Iran, and unfounded claims that Tehran is “begging” for a deal and peace is almost at hand, Trump has shredded that credibility in the space of a few short months.

What next?

Harper’s killers are among about 1,000 people in prison in England and Wales for manslaughter. Efforts to free up capacity will focus on three measures: reviewing the cases of inmates on indefinite sentences; releasing some of the 3,650 or so women in custody; and speeding up the release of foreign offenders, more than 6,000 of whom are eligible for deportation.

Following the arrival of a dinghy carrying a record 230 people, Burnham insisted he wanted to “eradicate” illegal Channel crossings. He added that wealthier areas would need to house more asylum seekers, saying: “We cannot have a situation where it’s only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees.”

What next?

The International Energy Agency has warned that global oil stockpiles are “rapidly depleting”, owing to the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries. It predicted a total shortfall in global supply of about 1.3 million barrels per day in 2026.

In a sweeping reshuffle, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has elevated a raft of hardliners to run his country’s National Security Council. Analysts said the appointments indicate that Tehran has no plans to back down in its lengthy stand-off with Trump.

THE WEEK

Searching online for a tent, my son found one that seemed to suit his needs. The website looks a bit dubious, I told him, with its mismatched fonts and photos taken in a back garden. But he had done his research: Station 13 is a reputable small firm, run by enthusiasts. Besides, he said, if the site had glossy images of campers gazing at sunsets on mountaintops, that would have been no proof of legitimacy. Thanks to AI, scammers can now create a slick website in ten minutes – a task that not long ago would have taken weeks. As a result, the online world has been invaded by rip-off sites posing as upmarket independent retailers. Type, say, “striped jumper” into Google, and you may see an ad for one of them. They tend to have names that denote timeless quality (George Hetherington: Avery & Oxford), heavily discounted prices and photos of their owners, perhaps posing in a boutique in a UK town. It’s all fake. The site is run from overseas, the photos are AI, and if you get your order at all, it will be cheap tat, and you’ll not get your money back. These sites are so easy to create, they appear faster than regulators can take them down. So pressure is growing on Google – and other platforms currently profiting from the scammers’ ads – to do more to verify traders before accepting their business. Until they do, the “trust recession” online will deepen, and honest retailers will have to work ever harder to prove their bona fides. But whatever is done, you can’t help feeling that AI will just keep gifting bad actors new ways to deceive the unwary. Caroline Law

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6 NEWS

Politics

Controversy of the week

Spotlight on Cambridge

The Jason Arday story is one “from which few emerge looking clean”, said Kenan Malik in The Observer. Not Arday himself, the “youngest black professor at Cambridge University”, who resigned last week after being accused of “plagiarism and lies”. Nor the right-wing mob who’ve relished his downfall. Nor his defenders, who dismissed the claims against him as “racist smears”, even when it became clear that there were a number of serious question marks over his academic record and aspects of his remarkable life story. Arday was teaching sociology, said Stephen Daisley in The Daily Telegraph. It should have been “creative writing”. He claimed to have run 600 miles in six days; suffered a brain tumour, mini-stroke and testicular cancer; and to have played football to a semi-professional level. But the real problem was his response to legitimate scrutiny. When Times Higher Education began investigating claims that he had used, without proper citation, chunks from another student’s paper in his thesis, and seemingly lifted passages from other researchers’ work, Arday retained the services of the law firm Carter-Ruck and reported the journalist to the police.

But whether he is saint or sinner, Arday is a “side issue”, said Andrew Tettenborn in The Spectator. It is Cambridge that must explain why it failed to do basic due diligence, before appointing a 37-year-old who’d had a highly “unorthodox” career. The plagiarism allegations have circulated for years; academics have pronounced his work mediocre, full of empty jargon and platitude. So why did this great university award him a covered professorship, asked Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph. Dr Hilary Cremin of the Faculty of Education told Arday, on film, that he was “the best in the world in terms of the research that you do”. Perhaps for her and other officials, his lack of the usual qualifications was “a qualification in itself”. If you are anxious to do penance for your and your university’s whiteness, and believe that its elitism has held minorities back, then a “young black man with dreadlocks and a proved conformity to ‘decolonising’ doctrines” may seem an ideal candidate.

In fact, by elevating Arday and then persisting in defending him, Cambridge has done black people a huge disservice, said Jason Okundaye in The Guardian. This scandal plays straight into the narrative that academia has “surrendered” to wokeness, and that minorities are unfairly advanced in the name of diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives. As a child, I was told that, at school, I would need “to be twice as good to gain half as much”, that black excellence was “always going to be questioned”, said Ava Vidal in The Independent. Some may persist in feeling sorry for Arday. I don’t: he courted attention to publicise his memoir; he seems to have told a pack of lies. It is the black academics who will now face yet more scrutiny because of him who have my sympathy.

Arday: resigned last week

The fifth heatwave

This summer is set to become the UK’s hottest on record, the Met Office said this week, as parts of the country entered a fifth heatwave. Almost three-quarters of England is now in drought, and there have been warnings that damage to crop yields could leave Britain facing its worst food-security crisis in decades. On Wednesday, ministers from Defra were due to attend an emergency Cobra meeting, chaired by PM Andy Burnham, to discuss the Government’s response to extreme heat, drought and wildfires. In the New Forest, 120 firefighters were battling to contain a blaze that has burned through hundreds of acres of protected heathland.

Farage case reopened

Police looking into the killing of Ann Widdecombe are investigating whether the suspect, Joshua Kerry, was involved in an incident at Nigel Farage’s home in London in April 2025. The Reform UK leader has said that an “incendiary device” was pushed through his letterbox. At the time, the police treated it as a failed burglary, but now they say they are investigating a new line of inquiry, and have referred themselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct over their previous handling of the case.

Spirit of the age

An Australian man who asked an AI agent to book his place in a Pilates class that often sold out found that it went the extra mile to do his bidding. First, it told him that it had hacked into the gym’s system to reserve him places in forthcoming classes, for which booking was not yet supposed to be open. Then, when he asked if it could move him up the waiting list for a full class, it told him it had already done so, by cancelling another member’s reservation. Its tone, he said, was not “malicious”; it was just trying to be “helpful”.

Half of children under 16 in the UK have been given at least one AI-enabled toy or device, though 75% of parents worry that such toys could expose their children to unwanted content or data vulnerabilities.

Good week for:

Surge pricing, with reports that ice cream van owners have been cashing in on the heatwave by charging up to £7 for a classic 99. The news vindicates one of Count Binface’s most eye-catching pledges as he campaigned for the Clacton by-election this week: to cap the cost of a 99 at 99p, Flake included.

Robotaxis, which moved a step closer to operating on British roads when Transport for London gave approval for a fleet to operate in the capital. However, under the terms of Uber’s licence, a human driver must always be present in the vehicle.

Bad week for:

The Glasgow School of Art, with news that its prized Mackintosh Building will probably never be fully restored. Eight years after the “Mack” was ravaged by the second of two fires, the school’s governors have admitted that they haven’t the funds for a faithful replica of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterpiece. The first fire, in 2014, had caused significant damage; a detailed £35m restoration project was almost complete when it was hit by a second fire in 2018, which reduced the building to a shell.

Harvey Nichols, which warned that it could collapse within months if it can’t find a buyer. The owner of the department store – which was founded in 1831 – put it up for sale in June; Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has been in talks to take it over.

German tourists, who have been traduced. Although Britons – and indeed Germans – persist in believing they are sunlounger hogs, a survey has found that French and Italians are more likely to use towels or other items to reserve a prime waterside spot.

Poll watch

Labour is now backed by 24% of voters; Reform UK is on 22% and the Tories are just one point behind on 21%. The Greens are on 12% – nine points down on their peak in February; the Lib Dems are on 11%. YouGov/Daily Mail

69% of Britons think that levels of immigration over the past ten years have been too high. That is almost the same as in 2016. However, 43% now say immigration has mostly been bad for the UK – up from 33% in 2016. 21% say it has mostly been good (down one point). YouGov/The Times

85% of 16- to 18-year-olds say they would opt out of the Government’s proposed voluntary social media curfew for under-18s. Censuswide/The Independent

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

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Europe at a glance

NEWS 7

Paris

Russian

interference:

French security officials claim to have exposed a coordinated Russian influence campaign, aimed at discrediting three leading contenders in next year's presidential

election. It is alleged that, in July and August, the trio – Édouard Philippe, the former centre-right PM, Gabriel Attal, of President Macron's Renaissance Party, and the Kremlin critic Raphaël Glucksmann (pictured) – were targeted by social media campaigns and fake news reports suggesting they suffered from severe health problems, or had ties to corruption. French officials say they've traced the campaigns to two Kremlin-linked networks.

Madrid

Italy row: Spain has imposed entry checks on people arriving by air or sea from Italy, escalating a bitter dispute sparked by events late last month, when around 72,000 people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government responded to the influx by temporarily suspending the border-free Schengen Agreement with Spain. Rome said that its new checks, which it said would be targeted at non-EU nationals, were necessary to prevent the migrants reaching Italy. Madrid dismissed it as political theatre: Ceuta lies outside the Schengen free-travel area; and almost all the arrivals had within days returned to Morocco. Spain called on Rome to halt the border controls, and when it did not, Madrid brought in reciprocal spot checks on individuals arriving from Italy, which it said would remain until 7 September.

Madrid

Network smashed: A criminal gang that ran one of the largest people-smuggling networks in the western Mediterranean has been dismantled by a Spanish-led operation, Europol and Spain's Civil Guard announced last week. The international operation led to the arrest of 77 suspects in Spain and one in Algeria. Most were said to be Algerian nationals with contacts all over Europe. The group is believed to have made €24m by smuggling more than 2,000 people from the coast of Algeria to Spain. The migrants were crammed into overcrowded boats that travelled at high speeds through rough waters. Some were tied down to stop them falling overboard. To maximise profits, the gang used the boats' return journeys to smuggle synthetic drugs from Europe to North Africa. As part of their crackdown, police seized 18 high-speed vessels and 15,000 MDMA pills.

Leipzig, Germany

Drone bomb: Germany has announced plans to expand its anti-drone capabilities in the wake of the discovery of an explosive-laden drone at Leipzig/Halle Airport, a major freight and Nato logistics hub. The device, which was discovered near a Ukrainian cargo aircraft, was defused by bomb-disposal experts, who said its detonator had malfunctioned. Days later, two drones were spotted flying over a military base at Mechernich, near the Belgian border. The base houses an underground facility where Patriot air-defence systems are reportedly serviced. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Germany faced daily “hybrid warfare” attacks, including “espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks and covert operations”, but that the Leipzig incident marked “a new level of danger”. He did not identify a culprit, but according to the US media, US intelligence agencies believe Russia was behind the attack.

Moscow

Party banned: Russia's supreme court has banned the country's only anti-war party from standing in the parliamentary election next month. Yabloko, the only registered party calling for the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine, had entered the election campaign with the slogan "For Peace and Freedom", after being given official approval in July. But last week, as it was registering about (5\%) in national polls, the pro-Kremlin nationalist Rodina party filed a lawsuit against it, alleging, among other things, that it had received illegal funds from abroad and published material in support of the LGBTQ+ movement, which was deemed to be "extremist" in 2023. Three days later, the court found against Yabloko; it has said it will appeal.

Corsica

Terror

threat:

An armed separatist group in Corsica has issued a filmed statement

warning tourists who are thinking about relocating to the island, or buying second homes there, to “stay at home” because they would not be safe. A dozen individuals, wearing hoods and carrying guns, appeared in the video, in which their leader described the roughly 5,000 people who move to the island each year as a “settlement-driven colonisation”. The group also railed against a new bill granting Corsica – which became part of France in 1768 – more autonomy, saying only independence would satisfy it.

Kyiv

Drops strikes: Ukraine has launched one of its deadliest attacks on Russian territory of the war to date, striking the Taneco oil refinery and other sites in Nizhnekamsk, some 750 miles across the border. At least 13 people, including a child, were killed, according to local officials. This year, Kyiv has stepped up its attacks deep inside Russia. Most have targeted oil refineries, though it has also hit some 20 warehouses belonging to Wildberries, the online retailer described as “Russia’s Amazon”. Moscow has also intensified its air attacks on Ukrainian cities, exploiting Kyiv’s critical shortage of air-defence equipment. This week, at least 12 people were killed in strikes on Ukrainian cities. President Zelensky said Russia had used North Korean ballistic missiles, and warned that Pyongyang plans to send up to 50,000 more troops to Russia, having already deployed an estimated 14,000 since 2024.

Catch up with daily news at theweek.com

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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8 NEWS

The world at a glance

Summerland, Canada

Deadly wildfires: The Canadian province of British Columbia declared a state of emergency on Saturday, as it struggled to contain more than 100 wildfires. The largest of them – the Bald Range fire – has spread across 156 square kilometres near the town of Summerland. More than 20,000 people have

had to be evacuated and an 80-year-old woman died while trying to flee the flames. Some 50 people had to be airlifted to safety. Fuelled by the dry weather, wildfires have destroyed 3.9 million hectares in Canada this year. Others have torn through swathes of the neighbouring US state of Washington.

Washington DC

Missile shortage: Donald Trump has denied reports that the US is running short of key munitions in its war with Iran, insisting it has “massive amounts” and that more are being manufactured. His remarks came after a report of a confrontation at Camp David, in which he allegedly blamed his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, for misleading him about dwindling stockpiles, having earlier told him the problem “had been fixed”. After The Washington Post disclosed the exchange, Trump responded furiously on social media. “The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” he wrote, going on to threaten them with “long-term jail sentences”. Reports suggest that shortages of long-range guided missiles and air-defence interceptors recently contributed to the US pulling back from new strikes. Munitions shortfalls have been predicted by experts since the war began on 28 February.

Washington DC

Vaccines order: Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for the number of childhood vaccines routinely recommended for all children to be cut from 18 to 11 diseases, and for the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to be split into three shots taken at separate visits. The order revives changes introduced in January by the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, which were blocked by a federal judge in March for having bypassed the CDC’s advisory committee. Trump and Kennedy have repeatedly promoted the discredited theory that vaccines may cause autism. Medical groups warned that spacing out vaccines could leave children exposed to preventable diseases. However, the order only has the force of a recommendation, as states retain authority over school vaccination requirements.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Meta fine: In one of the most significant rulings ever issued against a social media company, a judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta – the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – to pay an extra $567m for endangering children on its platforms. The case, brought by the state’s attorney general, Raúl Torrez, had already seen the firm ordered to pay $375m in civil fines, a jury having found it guilty in March of misleading the public about its safety policies and failing to stop sexual exploitation of children. Much of the further compensation that Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered it to pay last week must be spent on treating young people harmed online. Meta has said it will appeal against both fines.

Mexico City

Cheating scandal: Mexico’s most prestigious university has ordered about 58,000 applicants to resit its entrance exam amid suspicions of widespread cheating. In a drive to widen access, The National Autonomous University of Mexico allowed candidates to take the test remotely for the first time, and used AI tools such as facial recognition to monitor them. But the results were too good, 16% of candidates scoring at least 100 out of 120, compared with around 3.5% in previous years. It’s estimated that up to 75,000 of the 160,000 candidates may have cheated using impersonation, AI or outside assistance. And in the long period when the exam was open, questions were leaked and sold online. Those with scores high enough for admission must now take an in-person test.

Cali, Colombia

Deadly quake: A 7.4-magnitude earthquake, the strongest to hit Colombia this century, struck the west of the country on Monday, killing more than 200 people. Around half of the fatalities were in the city of Cali, where scores of buildings, including a hospital, collapsed. As rescuers scrambled to pull survivors from the rubble, a state of emergency was declared; and President Abelardo de la Espriella, who took

office just three days earlier, said he would “personally” lead the disaster response efforts.

Cali, Colombia

New president: Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, a millionaire lawyer known as “The Tiger”, was inaugurated last week and vowed “all-out war” against narcoterrorists. An ultra-conservative political novice and a staunch Trump ally, his approach contrasts starkly with that of his predecessor, the Leftist Gustavo Petro, who had adopted “a peace strategy” in dealing with the cartels and guerrillas. De la Espriella wants Colombia to join the Shield of the Americas, Trump’s anti-drug-trafficking initiative, and the US has pledged to give it $1bn to combat organised crime and illegal immigration. Colombia is the latest nation to shift to the right in Latin America, where 12 out of 20 countries now have Rightist leaders.

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

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The world at a glance

NEWS 9

Damascus

Russian bases: Moscow is having to relinquish control of its two military bases in Syria, as part of a new agreement with Damascus. Under its terms, Syria will take over the Hmeimim air base and part of the Tarrus naval base, both of which are sited on the country's Mediterranean coast. The bases will then be turned into joint Russian-Syrian training centres, in what Damascus referred to as the “reorganising of the Russian presence”. The arrangement has been widely interpreted as a major blow for the Kremlin, which had long used the bases to further its strategic interests in north Africa – a benefit of its close alliance with the former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Assad and his family have been living in Russia since late 2024, when they were ousted by the forces of the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Tripartite pact: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey have signed a collective defence agreement stipulating that an armed attack on any one of them will be treated as an attack on all three. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement unites three powerful Sunni-majority states: Saudi Arabia is by some measures the richest nation in the Gulf; Turkey has Nato's second-largest army and considerable drone expertise; Pakistan has a large

army and nuclear weapons. All are US allies, but some analysts have interpreted the agreement as a signal to Washington that they no longer believe they can rely on the US to preserve regional security, in the light of the current tensions in the region. Others have suggested that the deal is designed to serve as a warning to Iran and its proxies to hold back from further attacks on Gulf states, and also to act as a strategic counterweight to Israel's projected military power. Although the signatories have stressed that the pact is purely defensive, and non-sectarian, it has raised concerns in Israel – which has no formal diplomatic relations with either Riyadh or Islamabad and which has strained relations with Ankara – about the emergence of a “Sunni axis”.

Islamabad

Media crackdown:

Pakistan has tightened its restrictions on foreign media in what is being seen as an effort to limit the coverage of serious unrest in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Over the past few weeks there have been daily protests in the region in support of more political autonomy; dozens of people have been killed in clashes with police. Foreign media groups already needed permission to report outside the country's three biggest cities; now Pakistani journalists working for them also need a licence.

Rustenburg, South Africa

Mining deaths: At least 14 artisanal miners, most of them migrants from Lesotho, were killed this week when a mine dump in South Africa collapsed. A further eight suspected illegal miners – known in Zulu as “zama zamas”, or “chance takers” – were hurt in the accident, which occurred as they were digging for platinum and other metals near the town of Rustenburg. Three were arrested on charges of illegal mining and trespassing; the other five were being kept under guard in hospital. Meanwhile, a search operation was ongoing for anyone trapped in the rubble. Last January, the bodies of 78 people were recovered from a disused shaft in Stilfontein, after police cut of food and water supplies to the miners underground.

Umm al-Khair, Palestinian Territories

Settler charged: An Israeli settler has been charged with killing a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, the first such indictment in several years. Yinon Levy is accused of the reckless manslaughter of

Awdah Hathaleen (pictured), an activist who'd contributed to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. He was shot dead in Umm al-Khair last July, during a confrontation with settlers who'd brought a bulldozer into the village. According to Israeli media, there were 660 settler attacks in the West Bank in the year to June; in the same period last year there were 405.

Bangkok

Gun laws: The Thai government has promised to introduce tougher gun laws in the wake of last week's mass shooting at a school near Bangkok. The 14-year-old suspect is believed to have shot his grandparents dead at their home before travelling to Debsirin Nonthaburi School, where he opened fire on staff and students. Five teachers and a 12-year-old girl were killed in the attack, which ended when the boy killed himself. In a separate incident two days later, a former MP allegedly shot a former police colonel dead, apparently during a dispute about money.

© TURKISH PRESS/ENVI WURAT CE.TRAKLIHU/EDARHANDOUT

15 August 2026

THE WEEK

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10 NEWS

People

Irvine Welsh's proud mother

Irvine Welsh's mother was not very delighted when he used his experience of heroin addiction as the basis for his debut novel. "She hated Trainspotting at first," he told Paula Cocozza in The Guardian. "You're hanging your dirty washing in public! Bringing shame on me again!" But over time, her attitude to the book softened. "When it started to make money, she was like: 'I want new windows, son.' I bought her council house and got the windows double-glazed. She was all right with it after that. 'My laddie's written a book and it's a bestseller!'" Welsh says his mother could be very cutting – the pair used to have "brilliant jousts"; but while their relationship had always been "fractious", they found peace in the last part of her life. "We put it all out on the table emotionally and talked about how we loved each other, and how we were friends, and how we've been through this and been through that together." In a way, though, "we did that too early. We were twiddling our thumbs for the last five years."

A supermodel's "insane" life

It's over 30 years since Helena Christensen shot to fame alongside the likes of Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer, says Will Pavia in The Times. But the original supermodels – who were famously rumoured not to get out of bed for under £10,000 – are still in touch, and will often meet when they're in the same city. "It's really nice because we grew up together,"

she says. "We understand each other like no one else. It was just an insane and wonderful life in many ways, that no one else has experienced at that level." Yet Christensen insists the idea of the seven "supers" exists in other people's minds – not hers. "I am exactly the same way I was when I was 15. None of that had any effect on me [or] changed who I am. I'm grateful for it, but it didn't affect me in any way."

David Olusoga on the OBE

In his books, David Olusoga has been critical of the British empire; but when he was offered an OBE in 2019, he had no qualms about accepting it, he told Rosie Millard in Radio Times. "I'm often told by privileged white middle-class people that it's a terrible thing for a black person to accept an OBE," he says. But they don't understand what it means, for an immigrant to receive a national honour. Born to a Nigerian father and a British mother, Olusoga came to the UK aged five. He grew up on a council estate in Gateshead, where his family were a target for the National Front. But his mother was ambitious for him, and with help from the local education authority, which diagnosed his dyslexia, he made it to university – which proved the launch pad for his stellar career. "This country, with a lot of help from my mother, invested in me," he says. "And I don't want to snub a country that I became a citizen of, and which is my nation."

Castaway of the week

This week's edition of Radio 4's Desert Island Discs featured the neurologist Professor Dame Pamela Shaw

1 Messiah HWV 56: 42. Hallelujah Chorus by Handel, performed by the LPO and Choir (cond. Douglas Gamley) 2 Somethin' Stupid by C. Carson Parks, performed by Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra 3 Both Sides, Now, written and performed by Joni Mitchell 4* Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622: II. Adagio by Mozart, performed by Dame Thea King and the English Chamber Orchestra (cond. Alun Francis) 5 Sweet and Dandy by Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, performed by Toots and the Maytals 6 The Marriage of Figaro / "Duettino" Sull 'Aria by Mozart, performed by Gundula Janowitz and Edith Mathis with the Orchestra of the German Opera (cond. Karl Böhm) 7 Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar, performed by Band of HM Royal Marines 8 The Lucky One by Robert Lee Castleman, performed by Alison Krauss and Union Station

Book: the complete novels of Kristin Hannah

Luxury: three roses

• Choice if allowed only one record

At 64, the actor John Hannah is in a good place, career-wise. He accepts parts when they take his fancy, while his regular gig voicing the BBC's Race Across the World "keeps me in beer money". But he hasn't always been so relaxed, says Ben Dowell in The Times. When he got his big break, as the grieving Matthew in Four Weddings and a Funeral, he found it difficult to adapt to fame, and had therapy "just to deal with how life had changed". "Listen, it's great, people know who you are, you can get a table at a restaurant," he says. But at the same time, recognition "disturbed my mind and my sense of my place in the world... and maybe even my sense of myself as being very working class." Perhaps, he concedes, that was innate: "Being Scottish, they say we're very balanced, because we have a chip on each shoulder." But he found it infuriating, that doors were now open to him that had been closed before. When he was still unknown, the National Theatre hadn't even let him reschedule an audition, so he could get to the dentist. "And then just after Four Weddings I was offered a lead part in a musical, and I'm not musical." He was, he says, "really angry at how things had changed, how people had changed, how you were suddenly perceived differently. It pissed me off for a while and I thought, 'This is terrible, I'm having such a great time and yet I'm so f**king angry.'"

Viewpoint:

Why teenagers don't read

"Look at the GCSE reading list: Macbeth, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies. Murder; murder; authoritarian rule; social breakdown, the bullying of fat boys with glasses – then murder. If teen reading rates are plummeting, maybe it's because the reading list is so dry and depressing. Where are P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Adrian Mole, Oscar Wilde, Nancy Mitford, Terry Pratchett? I'm a 51-year-old author of nine books and even I wouldn't want to spend a long, hot summer going line by line through Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I too would want to go on TikTok and watch a girl with rainbow eyes eat noodles." Caitlin Moran in The Times

Farewell

Jimmy Cricket,

Northern Irish comedian, died 3 August, aged 80.

Sir Anthony Kenny,

philosopher, died 3 August, aged 95.

Sir Christopher

Ondaatje, Sri Lankan-born British-Canadian businessman, died 20 July, aged 93.

William Orbit, electronic musician and producer, died 23 July, aged 69.

Arlene Smith, lead singer of the 1950s girl group The Chantels, died 29 July, aged 84.

© CHANNEL 5

THE WEEK

15 August 2026

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Briefing

NEWS 13

China's green revolution

Beijing is embracing clean energy on a massive scale. What does this mean for the world?

What's happening?

China has been the world's biggest polluter since 2006, but in recent years, it has emerged as a clean energy superpower. Huge swathes of China – from the mountain plateaus of Tibet, where the sun shines brighter in the thin air, to the coast off Qingdao – are now covered by solar panels and wind farms. It is the first country in the world to have installed more than a million megawatts (MW) of solar power – almost double Europe and America's combined solar capacity, generating enough electricity to power the entire EU. In May 2025, it installed solar panels at a rate of up to 100 a second. It's also betting big on wind: a surge in turbine installations means that its wind capacity is now well over three times higher than that of its nearest

A solar panel farm near Hechi, in Guangxi

What explains this shift?

With a population of 1.4 billion and accounting for around a quarter of global manufacturing, China is the world's largest consumer of energy. Beijing regards its reliance on Middle Eastern oil and gas as a dangerous vulnerability: about 70% of its oil is imported, much of it passing through the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca. China's rise as a manufacturer was built on coal, but its leaders have also long been concerned about pollution and climate change. Green energy is seen as a solution to all these problems.

Is China a green economy?

In some ways, yes. Analysts believe that China's emissions may have already peaked. But Beijing isn't just betting on renewable electricity. It continues to build coal-fired power plants at an eye-watering rate: 85 are due to open this year alone, and it's building 36 nuclear reactors. China's National Energy Administration installed over 500 gigawatts (GW) of new power capacity in 2025; the UK grid's total capacity is around 70 GW. As a result, China is sometimes described as the world's first "electrostate". It is electrifying everything from industry to cars. And the role of green electricity is growing. Coal, which accounted for about (80\%) of electricity in 2000, provided just (55\%) in 2025, while wind and solar rose to around (20\%) from practically nothing over that period. Beijing sees green tech as a source of energy security, future prosperity and influence abroad.

How has it built up this industry?

The Made in China 2025 industrial plan, launched in 2015, identified it as a core strategic sector, concentrating on the “new three” industries – solar, batteries and electric vehicles, moving away from lower-value sectors such as textiles and cheap electronics. China also moved to dominate supply chains for the raw materials: cobalt, nickel, graphite, rare-earth metals. Local governments offered cheap land, subsidised electricity, and state-backed credit to manufacturers. Much of the groundwork had been done before. Chinese researchers studied in Europe and North America, where

all these technologies were pioneered; Western companies sold equipment and production lines. Since then, China has left its rivals in the dust.

What effect has this had?

China now controls 90% of the world's solar manufacturing, more than 70% of wind turbines, 80% of battery cells, and 70% of electric vehicles. This is leading to plummeting costs across the world: solar panel prices have fallen by some 90% in the past decade (though installation costs have fallen more modestly). The solar boom means that panels are now a ubiquitous sight on rooftops in Pakistan, India and across Africa, providing low-cost energy for millions of people. In March, driven by the Iran war, exports of Chinese solar panels hit a record 68 GW-

worth, double the previous month, with demand especially strong in Southeast Asia and Africa. Chinese wind turbines are now 30%-50% cheaper than those made in the US or Europe.

What are the downsides to this?

The UK, like much of the West, has been wiped out as a producer of solar panels and batteries; China has cornered the market. Europe still has a wind turbine industry – there is a major Siemens Gamesa factory in Hull – but they rely heavily on crucial Chinese components, such as high-strength magnets. There are ethical concerns about Chinese green tech supply chains: over 50% of polysilicon, a key raw material used in solar panels, is produced in Xinjiang, where Uyghur Muslims have been subjected to forced labour. There are also national security concerns about China's cholehold over a crucial sector: theoretically power units could contain kill-switches or data-harvesting features. Against this has to be set the benefits to the world of cheap tech, subsidised by the Chinese state – providing power that is cheaper, cleaner and less vulnerable to supply shocks or price jumps than oil and gas.

Will the boom continue?

Despite its apparent successes, China's solar industry is currently in the midst of a major downturn: all five of the major Chinese

Engineers vs. lawyers

In his book Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, Dan Wang argues that China is an "engineering state", run by leaders with technical backgrounds, while the US is a "lawyerly society", driven by a legal mindset. China's technocratic, top-down culture allows it to quickly build megaprojects, construct vast numbers of homes, and make long-term plans to dominate certain sectors of manufacturing. The rights-based mindset of the US, by contrast, often leads to gridlock, slower infrastructure development, and an obsession with process rather than output.

There are great human costs to treating China's society as a big engineering exercise, the most famous example being the one-child policy. Economically, it also often leads to inefficiencies and overproduction. The state is often not an effective allocator of capital; in recent years, driven by government subsidies and centralised production goals, supply has massively outpaced demand in the real estate and green tech sectors. On the other hand, the US free market system is arguably too fixated on short-term profits and efficiencies; while fast-changing political priorities – and President Trump's dislike of renewables – mean that it has surrendered leadership in solar and wind.

players in this sector posted losses for the last quarter, totalling 7bn yuan (£770m). This is partly because of a production glut driving prices down, but also because exporting Chinese panels is becoming more difficult: the US Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act bans the import of goods made with materials sourced from Xinjiang; India has imposed new tariffs; and the rollout of solar energy has slowed in Europe, owing to grid connection limits. China's renewable sector, like the UK's but on a larger scale, also faces storage and connection problems, because renewables are intermittent and often far from population centres. But the direction of travel is clear. According to the International Energy Agency, solar will become the biggest single electricity source in the early 2030s, with wind power second in line. And China will be at the forefront of that transformation.

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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14 NEWS

Best articles: Britain

Don't be

deceived about death taxes

Matthew Parris

The Spectator

Education? No,

the economy, stupid

John Burn-Murdoch

Financial Times

AI threatens

to grind the state to a halt

Editorial

The Economist

Beauty in the

eye of the data centre beholder

Tom Ough

UnHerd

It beats me, says Matthew Parris, why Andy Burnham, our proudly left-wing PM, should be talking up the idea of a new system of universal social care for the elderly, free at the point of use. It's a reform that confers no benefit to the poorest: those with assets of less than £23,250 already get subsidised care. The people who'd gain most from it are the asset-rich, happy to see the state relieve them of the burden of having to pay for their care. Or rather, let's be frank, it's their children. All the "caterwauling" over a "death tax" or "dementia tax" purports to be about the needs of the elderly, but that's a red herring: once in residential care their needs are being met, however paid too. No, it's really about the financial concerns of the heirs of the comfortably-off, who'd like nothing better than for the general taxpayer to foot the care bill to protect their own inheritances. Politicians should call out this hypocrisy, and "honest journalists should stop siding past the truth".

Is Britain sending too many young people to university? What can it do to improve the effectiveness and status of vocational training? We agonise over such questions today, says John Burn-Murdoch, and it's always in terms of how we can reform schooling. But it's our stagnant economy that accounts for most of the problems we're seeking to redress, not the education system. We're not churning out too many graduates, we're just not generating enough good new jobs for them. Other countries have expanded higher education at a similar clip, but none have suffered the erosion in the graduate wage premium seen in Britain. Likewise, it's not deficiencies in vocational training that are holding back our non-graduates, so much as a lack of well-paid blue-collar jobs: German factory workers earn up to 50% more than their British counterparts; functionally illiterate employees in the dynamic US economy earn roughly the same as the average, better-educated, British worker. Ministers can tinker with education reforms as much as they like, but that won't in itself remedy the deficits in esteem, employment and earnings. The key to better outcomes is boosting economic productivity.

Forget about AI taking all our jobs, says The Economist. There's another aspect of the technology we're not sufficiently worried about: its ability to help people complain. AI has the power, at the click of a button, to generate a professional-standard draft for anyone seeking to lodge a tax appeal, welfare claim, job complaint, planning objection or parking ticket challenge. This is a huge boon for individuals, of course, who no longer have to spend hours poring through small print and battling with officialdom. But it's catastrophic for government: it's on course to overwhelm our bureaucracies, which "are built for the age of the post and the telephone" and have always relied on a degree of systemic inertia in order to function. We now face the prospect of "a doom-loop of complaints and worsening services" as AI-armed citizens paralyse the machinery of state. The effects of this "agentic flooding" are already being felt: the backlog in employment tribunals has risen 55% in a year, largely owing to AI-fuelled claims. The state must take immediate action to counter this: there's no time to lose. It must close loopholes, prune procedural rights, simplify Byzantine appeals systems – and, most importantly, devise ways for officialdom itself to harness the power of artificial intelligence.

Across the West, data centres are universally loathed, says Tom Ough – for good reason. They gobble up precious energy and water resources; they let out an incessant hum. Tech firms can't do much about those, true, but they could remedy the most strident complaint of all: their ugliness. With few notable exceptions – the one housed in the ingeniously converted Torre Girona chapel in Barcelona, is one – data centres are "appalling eyesores". And who wants to live near a vast, windowless grey box whose blank aesthetic seems to embody a contemptuous attitude to the public at large? It doesn't have to look like that, though. We once built civic infrastructure that inspired enthusiasm – think of that "art deco cathedral to industry", Battersea Power Station. We can't do without data centres: the AI tech they service has the potential to transform the world for the better. But if the public is to accept them, their designers "must find some way of expressing, through architectural form, what these buildings could mean for humanity".

IT MUST BE TRUE...

I read it in the tabloids

A patch of forest known as the "Cock of the North" owing to its phallus-like outline is to be felled. One of the first sights drivers see after crossing into Scotland on the MT4, Castle Crawford Wood has become a cherished landmark, but Scottish Forestry says it has "reached the end of its natural lifecycle". A petition calling for the "iconic penis woodland" to be replaced has attracted 2,743 signatures.

Dorset Council has apologised after a "Dead End" sign appeared on Cemetery Road. It was put up after residents of nearby Blind Lane complained that drivers were trying to use it as a shortcut, though it has no through access. A council spokesperson admitted that it was an "unfortunate combination", but said the sign had been installed with the "best intentions".

A multimillion-pound undersea cable had to be diverted after Harry Potter fans complained that it would disturb Dobby's grave. The fictional house elf died in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part One, and the burial scene was shot at Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire – which has since become a place of pilgrimage for Harry Potter fans. Project manager Simon Ludlam told a podcast that the £430m Greenlink interconnector, which links the National Grid to Ireland, had been scheduled to go "straight through" a Dobby memorial – consisting of a pile of painted pebbles and sticks – until he was inundated with "hundreds of calls". In the end, the cable was laid "quite close" to some real Bronze Age remains instead.

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

© BAPS

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Best of the American columnists NEWS 15

Upset in Michigan: a disaster for the Democratic leadership?

Fresh from their victories in New York City's congressional election in June, left-wing insurgents in the Democratic Party have won their most important victory yet, said Jason Zengerle in The New Yorker. Last week, Abdul El-Sayed – a Rhodes Scholar and former public-health official – won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary on "an unapologetically progressive platform", and against all the odds. His centrist opponent, Haley Stevens, had benefitted from a war chest of about $60m – more than half of which reportedly came from the pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac. This gave her a "nine-to-one TV spending advantage" over El-Sayed. She also had the endorsement of Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, the state's most popular Democrat. Yet that wasn't enough to secure her victory in the primary. In a race that drew a massive turnout, El-Sayed prevailed, albeit by a slender one-percentage-point margin.

The result is an "outright catastrophe" for the Democratic leadership, said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. The centre-left threw everything at this race, only to be bested by a candidate who scorns many of the party's positions. More such humiliations will follow unless party leaders heed the lessons of this result. "Some of the fixes" necessary are obvious. Aipac has, clearly, become toxic to many voters: Democrats must reject its endorsements and stop supporting unconditional aid for Israel. But at the same time, they should be more confident about challenging the bogus narratives of the Leftists who are bent

El-Sayed: "an unapologetically progressive platform"

on staging a hostile takeover of their party. The fact is, President Biden "gave progressives a free hand to shape his domestic policies". After his disastrous election debate performance had laid bare his unfitness to stand, it was radicals such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who rallied behind his candidacy, while Nancy Pelosi and other establishment Democrats tried to get him to withdraw. Yet somehow, the Left is trying to distort this narrative, and position itself as an "untried alternative".

The secret of the progressives' success, said Matthew Yglesias in The New

York Times, is that they're good at "factional organising" and "punching back hard at the Trump administration". But while that fighting spirit wins them the support of voters in primary elections, it is not at all clear that their policies will appeal to voters in the crucial general elections. According to a poll in June, 53% of likely voters in Senate swing states think the Democrats are already too far to the left. The challenge facing El-Sayed this November, said Jim Newell on Slate, will be to show that in a close race, against a strong GOP candidate, a progressive Democrat has a just as good or greater chance of victory as an establishment one. Because the result in Michigan in November doesn't just have the potential to win or lose the Democrats control of the Senate. Victory in the biggest Senate race of 2026 would triumphantly vindicate the progressives' case, and likely influence the nomination for the Democrat presidential candidate in 2028. Defeat, on the other hand, could destroy them.

Raking in the cash: the "money-grubbing" presidency

The most striking feature of Donald Trump's second term, said Daniel W. Drezner on Substack, has been the sheer scale of his personal corruption. The president has made little effort to conceal his influence-peddling and self-dealing, as he has extracted more than $800m from companies and donors for his pet projects. His top fundraiser, Meredith O'Rourke, reportedly rings firms on his orders and says, "The boss wants this money." SoftBank handed over $50m for Trump's presidential library; Apple coughed up $25m for his ballroom; Meta gave $10m to a Trump-aligned campaign group.

Donors understand that money means access and favourable treatment. Trump last month renewed a tariff exemption for natural diamonds, weeks after a Belgian diamond group gifted him a huge 18-carat gold ring encrusted with 321 diamonds. All of this is on top of the $2.2bn Trump made in 2025 alone "from a variety of shakedowns and grifts", including crypto schemes and real-estate deals with Middle Eastern autocrats.

The Trump family is about to rake in even more cash, said the Washington Examiner. Its media venture has just launched Truth API, which, for up to $100,000 a month, will give subscribers millisecond-faster access to the president's posts on Truth Social, his social media platform. The company is explicitly marketing this as a way for financial firms to gain an edge over competitors by being the first to see Trump's

The spoils of office: Trump made $2.2bn in 2025

"most market-moving Truths". That could be worth a lot to algorithmic traders: a Trump post in April 2025 announcing a tariff pause sent the S&P 500 stock index soaring 9.5%. "The whole concept is so corrupt you almost struggle to get your head around it," said Jim Swift on The Bulwark. Trump is charging for something – knowledge of government actions – that should belong freely to Americans by right. It's "pure rent-seeking".

Campaigning against Trump's flagrant money-grubbing should be a winning message for Democrats in the midterm

elections, said James Downie on MS Now. A recent CNN/SSRS poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans think the president has "gone too far" in "pursuing his personal business interests". Other surveys, however, have found that 44% of US voters, including two-thirds of independents, think neither party is fighting the rot in Washington. After a decade of Trump's grifting, Democrats must find such polling results "frustrating – even baffling". But voter sentiment here is understandable. Despite strong public support for more anti-corruption measures, Washington hasn't passed any major ethics reforms in years. Even something "as simple and popular" as curbing lawmakers' ability to engage in insider trading on stocks and shares has proved beyond the ability of Congress to agree. Democrats should make corruption an election-defining issue – but then they must actually do something about it.

© JOYCE N. BOGHOSIAN/THE WHITE HOUSE

15 August 2026

THE WEEK

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16 NEWS

Best articles: International

Putin’s Russia: a land that has “run out of workers”

Growth may be slowing, but Russia’s economy is essentially sound. That’s the message Vladimir Putin is keen to purvey; and by way of proof he cites Russia’s incredibly low unemployment rate: just 2.1%. He’s got it back to front, said Alexander Kolyand in The Spectator. Far from being a comfort, this figure should cause Putin huge alarm. It underscores the fact that his nation is undergoing its worst labour crisis in decades: it “has run out of workers”. The crisis has its roots in the low birth rates of the 1990s, but the war in Ukraine has “poured fuel on it”.

High military wages have devastated civilian firms

longer an option as so many convicts have already been sent to the front lines. (The jail population has shrunk from 465,000 in 2021 to 282,000.) So too with the plan to open jobs hitherto deemed too physically taxing or dangerous to women, as their number in Russia’s labour market is remarkably high already. Such measures fail to get to grips with the sheer scale of the problem, says Mathias Bruggmann in Die Tageszeitung (Berlin). Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 1.4 million Russian soldiers have been killed or badly wounded. The only solution to Russia’s chronic labour

It certainly has, said the Luxembourg Times. Men are being sent to the front in vast numbers: the target number of contract soldiers to be signed up this year is 409,000. And the high pay they’re being offered as a lure is crippling the economy. In 2022, a contract soldier’s monthly salary was about four times the average Russian wage. It’s now closer to twice the average wage because the defence industry (employment in military production has risen by half a million since 2021), the railways and other big state sectors have all had to hike up wages in an effort to compete. As a result, companies in the civilian sector are finding it increasingly difficult to survive. Yet the remedies the Kremlin has pursued to tackle the crisis have been woefully insufficient, said Samuel Bendett and Maria Snegovaya in Foreign Policy. Expanding forced prison labour, a familiar Soviet strategy, is no

shortage is increased migration. Yet since March 2024, when Tajik terrorists killed 149 people in an attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall, the Kremlin has gone in the opposite direction, imposing harsh new rules on migrants, especially those from the former Soviet states in Central Asia – Russia’s largest immigrant group. Their number has fallen dramatically. Issuing 70,000 Chinese and 34,000 Indians work permits this year hasn’t been nearly enough to plug the gap.

In fact, Russia’s economy has now entered “the death zone”, said Alexandra Prokopenko in The Economist. The budget deficit is spiralling out of control; export revenues are falling. The longer the war lasts, the greater the risk of fiscal crisis, of institutional collapse, “of damage so severe no postwar policy can repair it”.

UKRAINE

The West has ignored Kyiv’s Achilles’ heel

LRT News (Vilnius)

The West should temper its optimism about the war in Ukraine, says Alvydas Medalinskas. For the past 40 days, it has understandably celebrated what appeared to be a large momentum shift in Kyiv’s favour. Night after night, Ukrainian drones have swarmed into Russia, where the targets struck have included many energy export facilities. Its success has been so sweeping – images showing plumes of smoke billowing above Moscow have become ubiquitous – that 40% of Russia’s oil industry has ground to a halt. And Ukraine has also been wildly successful at sea, with Russia’s ability to export grain greatly reduced by drone strikes against ships in the Sea of Azov. Sadly, though, this is not the complete picture. The West has ignored Kyiv’s glaring Achilles’ heel: it is “more vulnerable” than ever to Russian ballistic missiles, owing to its worrying shortage of Western-built interceptors. Moscow has exploited this weakness to the full over the past 40 days by destroying hundreds of Ukrainian gas stations, a fair proportion of the country’s total, and by bringing maritime trade in and around Odesa to a standstill. Unless urgent supplies are sent to Ukraine, the tide of the war may turn again.

GERMANY

The folly of trying to ban the extremists

Daily Sabah (Istanbul)

Too many decent Germans are succumbing to a “dangerous temptation”, says Yunus Mazi: the desire to ban the AfD. Only last week, 1,000 lawyers and judges signed a petition seeking to outlaw it. Why? Because the anti-immigrant far-right party falls foul, they argue, of the principles of upholding human dignity and democracy enshrined in Germany’s constitution. Yet ugly as many AfD policies may be, this is absolutely the wrong way to proceed. The AfD has got where it is – it’s now leading in some national polls – by “cultivating the image of a persecuted outsider confronting a closed political establishment”. And support for it has risen, despite and possibly even because of the “firewall” put up by opposition parties, who’ve refused to work with it at local, state and federal level. The decision of the intelligence services to call it an extremist organisation has likewise backfired. And so, too, in all likelihood, would instituting a ban. The way to combat extremism is through better government, more credible migration policies and open confrontation with AfD policies. Trying to suppress it is a fool’s game. You can’t simply make troublesome parties and dissatisfied voters magically disappear.

SOUTH KOREA

We’ve got to find a way of taking the heat

The Korea Times (Seoul)

South Koreans have had a rude awakening this summer, says The Korea Times. The latest devastating heatwave, which has been linked to at least 19 deaths, has proven, once and for all, that climate change is no longer a distant concern. As temperature records keep “being broken with alarming regularity”, we can no longer view extreme heat as an anomaly: 40-degree summers must be accepted as the “new normal” and the authorities must change their approach as a matter of the utmost urgency. You only have to look at what’s been happening in our farming and energy sectors to see that the present system is not fit for purpose: food prices have soared as a result of crop failures, while energy infrastructure has been pushed to near breaking point owing to the growing demand for electricity caused by the need for more and more air conditioning. A new comprehensive national strategy is desperately needed: build more cooling infrastructure; invest in advanced forecasting to increase preparedness; insist that workers take compulsory breaks during the hot weather. If South Korea continues to do little more than offer heat warnings, the consequences will be dire.

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

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18 NEWS

Talking points

**Pick of the week's

Gossip**

Andy Burnham's wife Marie-France van Heel was dismayed when he told her that he wanted to have a third shot at the Labour leadership. 'She was like, 'What? They told you twice they don't want you. Why are you doing it again?'' On Elizabeth Day's How to Fail podcast, he also recalled that she was pretty critical of his early media appearances. He'd come out of an interview thinking he'd done well, only to look at his phone and see a text from her reading: ANSWER THE F**KING QUESTION!

Attendees at a rally in Las Vegas last week struggled to focus on what Donald Trump was saying because they were so busy marvelling at his hair, says The Times. Having looked thin and pale days earlier, it was now luxuriant, and a rich yellow. 'Our 80-year-old president appears to have grown a new head of hair overnight,' noted commentator Jon Favreau, as spoof images circulated online (above).

In an interview before his death, Sam Neill revealed that he was often stopped by people who wanted to tell him how much they loved his film Hunt for the Wilderpeople. But one of its best-known scenes – in which his on-screen wife sings a special birthday song for Ricky Baker, their foster son – only came about because Happy Birthday was not in the public domain. The scene, he explained, was set up with actress Rima Te Wiata about to sing Happy Birthday 'when the producer came running in and said: 'We can't use that... we don't have copyright!' Rima, [director Taika Waititi] and I had to write something new in ten minutes, but it was mostly Rima.'

Kemi Badenoch: backing a former neo-Nazi

Kemi Badenoch is not a fool, said Tom Harris in The Daily Telegraph; nor is she remotely an antisemite. So why did she stick her neck out for Joshua Bonehill-Paine, the former neo-Nazi who'd hoped to stand as a Tory councillor in Somerset? Having served time in jail for waging a repulsive campaign of racial hatred against the former Labour MP Luciana Berger, Bonehill-Paine claims to be a reformed character, dedicated to fighting antisemitism. And perhaps he is – but that didn't make it appropriate for him to stand for office, especially when he

hadn't even apologised to Berger for what he termed 'Operation Filthy Jew Bitch'. Yet when his candidacy was being condemned by all sides last week, Badenoch defended it; and when he withdrew it, she gave him a role as an adviser on radicalisation instead. The Tory leader is savvy enough to have seen the risk to her reputation. So the only possible explanation for her apparent poor judgement is that she believes in second chances – and has the courage to stick to her principles, even if they make her unpopular.

I don't buy it, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman. Her belief in 'second chances' was not in evidence in 2024, when it emerged that the Labour minister Louise Haigh had been convicted of fraud a decade ago. We need

Another blow to Tory centrists

'conviction politicians', she said, 'not politicians with convictions'. Yet Haigh's offence – falsely reporting the theft of a mobile phone – was as nothing compared with Bonehill-Paine's (who also has a conviction for assault). Unwisely, Badenoch tried to further justify his candidacy by saying he'd only sought a local platform – 'looking at parking and sorting out bins' – thus insulting her existing councillors at the same time.

In May, Badenoch impressed many by taking a clear stand against antisemitism, said Kate

Maltby in The Observer. Yet last week found her supporting a former neo-Nazi – presumably because she'd decided that the Tories needed his Crewkerne Gazette platform, known for its viral AI videos mocking Labour, to be on its side. This row has revived 'wider concerns' about her entire strategy of tacking to the right, said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper. Only days earlier, Badenoch had warned that ex-centrist MPs – who support net-zero targets, or don't want the UK to leave the ECHR – won't be allowed back into the parliamentary party. But while she seeks to win votes from Reform UK, her critics argue that, for an outright majority, the Tories need to win back the seats they've lost to the Lib Dems. Time will tell who is right, but for now, the One Nation lot are well and truly out in the cold.

Gaza: Netanyahu snubs Trump's plan

For a moment, it looked as though there might be some progress in Gaza, said John Haltiwanger in Foreign Policy. The coastal enclave has been in a 'painful limbo' since a nominal ceasefire began last October. Israel still controls more than 60% of the territory and has killed more than 1,250 Palestinians in ongoing strikes, according to Gaza officials. At the end of last month, there appeared to have been a breakthrough when the militant group Hamas agreed to a US-backed framework to disarm in exchange for a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Donald Trump hailed the move as a 'monumental step' and said Israel was 'very happy' with the agreement. But on Sunday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly rejected Trump's 15-point peace plan, insisting that Israel would not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas underwent 'genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament', which he defined as including 'all weaponry'.

Netanyahu took a risk by snubbing Trump's plan in this way, said Donald Macintyre in The Independent, but his overriding concern right now is Israeli public opinion. On 27 October, he faces the most crucial election of his career and he wants to avoid any sense that the war in Gaza – 'which a large body of Israeli public opinion still blames him for failing to forestall' – ended in failure. The PM had good reason to

be wary about the 'ambiguous' sequencing of the plan, said The Jerusalem Post. But it's worth noting that even as Netanyahu publicly rejects the agreement, he's 'quietly carrying out parts of it'. Israel has sharply scaled back attacks in Gaza, for instance, and approved the entry of an initial contingent of UN peacekeepers. Netanyahu is trying to resolve a dilemma by 'saying one thing and doing another'.

Both Israel and the US face some delicate judgements here, said Andrew Roth in The Guardian. Netanyahu can ill afford to push his luck with Trump, given the wider political climate in America. Democrat politicians have become increasingly critical of Israel and its campaign in Gaza; and the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, Vice-President J.D. Vance, has also been 'publicly sceptical'. Trump, for his part, has to weigh up whether to put more pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a deal, potentially alienating some pro-Israel allies in the US ahead of November's midterms, or run the risk of seeing his efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East stall, perhaps indefinitely. 'With both countries entering tumultuous election cycles', amid a 'generational shift in support for Israel' among American voters, this period could permanently 'redraw the alliance between Israel and the US'.

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

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Talking points

NEWS 19

Reform vs. Restore: the fight on the Right

“Summer has usually been a season of political opportunity for Reform UK,” said Patrick Maguire et al. in The Times. Small boat crossings increase in the good weather; ministers are on holiday; and the slower news agenda leaves space for “eye-catching policies”. Last August, Nigel Farage exploited this “mercilessly”, touring the country with his “broken Britain” message as his poll ratings rose. “But this summer has proved trickier.” True, Farage was widely expected to beat his main rival, the satirist Count Binface, in this week’s by-election in Clacton. But hard questions about his and his party’s finances will keep coming; and even he admits that the continued rise of Rupert Lowe’s hard-right Restore Britain party “could block his narrowing path to No. 10”. That anxiety may explain his latest attention-grabbing policy offer – to deport foreign criminals to mega-prisons in El Salvador.

Farage is right to worry, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. The “radical Right” in Britain is “split, and quite badly”. Pollsters reckon that more than one in ten voters who backed Reform in 2024 would now vote for Restore. In the recent Manchester mayoral by-election, Reform came second on 112,000 first preference votes; Restore was fourth (after the Greens) on 46,000. That was the background to Lowe’s

Farage and Lowe before they fell out

offer last week to strike an “electoral pact” with Farage. Restore, he indicated, would be willing to work with Reform if it agreed to certain conditions: to bring back capital punishment; ban halal and kosher meat; exclude former Tory ministers from any future cabinet; and carry out mass deportations of migrants – “including women and children”. Farage was never likely to accept the offer, said

David Aaronovitch in The Independent. Aside from the fact that the pair have been bitter foes since Lowe was chucked out of Reform in 2025, such a pact would leave Reform in an impossible position: pushing policies aimed at hard-right voters when, to win power, it needs to appeal to the centre.

Farage must not get mixed up with Restore, agreed Melanie Phillips in The Times. Lowe may have “added to the gaiety of the nation” last week, when he refused to agree that the King is a white Briton, because Prince Philip was born in Corfu; but his party is a bigoted one. Its leaders seem to want Britain to be an “ethnostate”, a nation defined not by shared values and civic commitment, but by religion and ancestry. Restore activists claim that they are patriots “defending Britain”; but in reality, they are “sinister and clownish fringe artists” who should be given “no room in any big tent by anyone”.

Daniel Kinahan: extradited at last

On Sunday evening, an Irish government plane landed at an airport near Dublin, said Rory Hanrahan in The Spectator. On board was Daniel Kinahan, an alleged leader of the feared Kinahan cartel. The 49-year-old – who has yet to be convicted of any crime – was Ireland’s most wanted man, yet he had for a decade lived freely in Dubai with his family. He seemed to be above the law. But behind the scenes, multiple agencies across several countries had for years been working to bring him to justice, and in April, he was arrested. Owing to the “power of his alleged cartel and its reputation for violence, as well as the many people who might want to harm him”, he was returned home “amid unprecedented security”, said The Daily Telegraph. The Irish Prison Service had bought a bombproof van in which to transport him, and there were snipers on rooftops when he appeared in court this week to face a single charge – directing a criminal organisation.

That organisation is “one of the most powerful transnational crime groups on the planet”, said John Mooney in The Sunday Times. It is believed

Fled Ireland in 2016

to control a third of the supply of cocaine into Europe, and to have lucrative sidelines in arms and money laundering. Its networks are said to take in South American cartels and Chinese crime groups, Hezbollah and Russian intelligence. Daniel Kinahan – whose father Christy founded the group – lived in Ireland until 2016, when a murderous feud with the rival Hutch gang led to an attempt on his life at Dublin’s Regency Hotel. He fled Ireland immediately afterwards and settled in the UAE.

There, Kinahan was able to carry on his work as a boxing promoter while allegedly running the cartel’s criminal activities. But his “apparent untouchability evaporated” in 2022, when – as a result of Irish lobbying – the US offered a $5m reward for information leading to his arrest, said Rory Carroll in The Guardian. In May 2025, Ireland and the UAE agreed an extradition treaty; less than a year later, Kinahan was detained. What this shows is the vital role of “international cooperation” in the fight against organised crime, said The Irish Times. The fight won’t ever end, but the progress made lately is “significant and encouraging”.

Wit & Wisdom

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realise half of them are stupider than that.”

George Carlin, quoted in the Bennington Banner

“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.”

Attrib. George Bernard Shaw, quoted in The Daily Telegraph

“It’s the height of rudeness and betrayal to offer children a story and give them only a moral.”

Katherine Rundell, quoted in The Observer

“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park.”

Anthony Bourdain, quoted in The Guardian

“No one who has something original or important to say will willingly run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief.”

Sir Peter Medawar, quoted on UnHerd

“My daughter is obsessed with climate change. She told me we have to stop using plastic completely. So I took away her credit card.”

Comedian Sasha Nezlobin, quoted in The Daily Telegraph

“Every intelligent boy of 16 is a socialist. At that age, one does not see the hook sticking out of the rather stodgy bait.”

George Orwell, quoted in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Statistics of the week

The 20mph speed limit now applies to 40,000 miles of residential and urban roads, almost a third of the UK’s total of such roads.

The Times

Some 30% of adults in England are now classed as obese – double the proportion in 1993, the year after the UK’s first obesity strategy was published.

Daily Mail

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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20 NEWS

Sport

Football: Infantino and the crisis at Fifa

Anybody wondering whether Gianni Infantino could be “shamed into a rapid resignation” got their answer last week, said Adam Crafton on The Athletic: the Fifa president is “fighting on”. Ever since his “clandestine plot” to create a $20bn commercial subsidiary to control the rights to the World Cup was revealed in late July, Infantino has faced intense criticism from the world of football and beyond. Last Wednesday, however, he notched up a rare victory, when members of Fifa’s “management board” reaffirmed their “full support” for him. This “extraordinary show of faith” followed a crisis meeting in Rabat (from which several Fifa executives, including Arsène Wenger, were absent). The outcome of that meeting was relayed in a statement by Fifa which acknowledged that “mistakes” had been made, before going on the attack. Fifa, the statement said, will not tolerate “attacks on its integrity”, governance and due process, and “will take all necessary measures to defend its name and reputation”. So there we have it. Crisis over?

Don’t believe that for a second, said Jeremy Wilson in The Daily Telegraph. Infantino may be in no mood to give up a job that pays him £4.5m a year, gives him access to world leaders and celebrities and enabled him to tour this summer’s World Cup in a private jet. But the drip of damaging revelations continues: last week, it also emerged that Uefa paid off Infantino’s alleged mistress while he was its general secretary from 2009 to 2016 (a claim he denies). And criticism from the world’s major football federations continues to mount, too, said Matt Hughes and Nick Ames in The Guardian. On Monday, Uefa (representing Europe), Concacaf (North and Central America) and the Asian Football Confederation all signed an open letter demanding “leadership that serves football, not seeks to command it”. They are contemplating boycotting Fifa events and organising their own tournaments – with the participation of European teams in next month’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup now in serious doubt.

Leading the campaign against Infantino is Uefa and its canny president, Aleksander Ceferin, said Ian Hawkey in The Sunday

Infantino with Ceferin – the “sheriff” out to get him

Times. Born in the former Yugoslavia, Ceferin is a former lawyer who has run European football’s governing body since 2016. He has a black belt in karate, and a reputation as a skilled consensus-builder. And in the weeks since Infantino’s World Cup plan was exposed, he has emerged as “the sheriff most likely to run the outlaw out of town”. Granted, he may not have all, or even a majority, of Fifa’s 211 member associations behind him; but he “has Europe in something like lockstep”, and his call for change at the top of Fifa has been echoed by the English FA.

I’m not remotely inclined to defend Infantino, said Ian Herbert in the Daily Mail. But the hypocrisy of some of his critics is frankly extraordinary. Ceferin’s Uefa, for instance, is casting itself as a guardian of fans against “billionaire

opportunists”; but Uefa itself has always chased more revenue, through routes such as the expanded Champions League format. As for Real Madrid’s criticism of Infantino, that’s hard to accept when, in 2021, the Spanish giants led the “contemptible group of 12 clubs who attempted the European Super League breakaway”. Infantino didn’t invent football’s “commodification”, said Oli Dugmore in The New Statesman. On the contrary, his World Cup plan was the “logical conclusion” of a trajectory the game has been on for years. But that doesn’t make his brazen embrace of it any more excusable.

“He may be in no mood to give up a £4.5m a year job that gives him access to world leaders”

The question now, said Martyn Ziegler in The Times, is “can Infantino cling on?” There’s currently nothing to suggest

he’ll have a change of heart and resign of his own accord. But he may have no choice if Uefa’s planned boycott goes ahead; or if his African powerbase abandons him and falls in behind another candidate ahead of Fifa’s elections in March; or, crucially, if Fifa’s sponsors “start getting cold feet”. Whatever happens next, this debate has already been a strange one, said Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian. Much of the focus has been on how to topple Infantino, and who might replace him. Sorely lacking have been ideas about how to “change Fifa”, an organisation that has been beset by scandal – remember Sepp Blatter? – for years now. As an organisation, Fifa is clearly rotten. Is it also “irredeemable”?

The Tour de France Femmes: refreshingly competitive

The men’s Tour de France may boast the biggest stars and most eye-catching controversies; but at a time when Tadej Pogačar’s dominance of that event is total, “it is the Tour de France Femmes that offers the most compelling racing”, said Jeremy Whittle in The Guardian. This year’s nine-stage, 730-mile epic was the race’s fifth iteration; and it was the Dutch rider Demi Vollering who claimed victory on Sunday. The win meant Vollering became the first woman to win the Tour twice; but she was pushed hard by Poland’s Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney, who on the penultimate stage had hit out at the “childish” behaviour of Vollering’s FDJ United-Suez teammate after she was forced towards the kerb. It was a “heated” moment, but on

Vollering: a top-notch victory

“a final stage of high drama”, Vollering erased any lingering controversy with a win “of the highest quality”. And by the contest’s end, “the sisterhood that has always characterised this race had kicked back in”. This Tour was a classic, thanks in large part to the organisers’ “excellent course design”, said Matt Warwick on BBC Sport. The route can vary; but this year’s took in an ascent of the infamous Mont Ventoux for the first time –

a stage in which the likeable Niewiadoma-Phinney put in an “epic effort” to claim the yellow jersey; and it allowed the “picturesque” city of Dijon to host an attention-grabbing time trial. All told, the Tour added up to “the kind of thrill” that men’s cycling “can only dream of”.

Sporting headlines

Tennis Jannik Sinner pulled out of this week’s Cincinnati Open with a knee injury.

Football In Andoni Iraola’s first match in charge at Anfield, Liverpool gave up a two-goal lead in a 3-2 defeat to Monaco. Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk made his first appearance in nearly two years in a 1-0 loss to Juventus.

European Championships Britain’s Amy Hunt won gold in the women’s 100m on Monday, taking her first major title with a time of 11secs.

Football Arsenal have signed Bruno Guimarães from Newcastle, for a fee of £75m.

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

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LETTERS

21

Pick of the week's correspondence

The case for regeneration

To The Daily Telegraph

Andy Burnham is putting housing at the heart of his national agenda, but there is something perverse about the way we approach the housing crisis. We are under pressure to build more homes, yet empty buildings are deteriorating while there are plans to release more green belt land. If developers want public support, they should be building in places where people can see communities being brought back to life – while recognising that some well-planned development in the green belt is also necessary.

The argument for brownfield regeneration is hardly new, but the commercial reality behind it deserves attention. For politicians, bringing heritage buildings and underused sites back to life should be an easy win. It creates homes, regenerates communities and can help to ease some of the pressure on the green belt. The problem is the fact that the planning constraints, remediation costs and the unknowns that come with older buildings can turn an attractive opportunity into an unviable proposition.

That is where the Government has a role. Targeted measures could include VAT, capital gains and stamp duty relief, alongside financial support for challenging schemes, making regeneration genuinely attractive to builders and developers. Done properly, this could deliver a win on all fronts: new homes, revitalised communities and a commercial proposition strong enough to help businesses to develop.

The UK has no shortage of regeneration opportunities. What it lacks is a compelling commercial case for bringing many of them forward. Simon Cox, managing director, Walter Cooper, Hertford

Benefits, not food banks

To The Guardian

The finding that 47% of Labour Party members surveyed believe the Government is spending too much on social security is depressing. But perhaps it's not surprising given the false, "out of control" political and media

Exchange of the week

Elon Musk's aspirations

To The Economist

It may be a bit premature to take Elon Musk's forecasts seriously. Consider his record on full self-driving cars, for which there is a devoted Wikipedia page. In 2013, he said 90% of the miles in a Tesla car would be self-driven by 2016. In 2015, he predicted that Tesla would have complete autonomous driving by 2018. In 2016, the date slipped to 2019. Since 2020, it has been "this year" every year. The latest prediction is December 2026, a decade later than he first expected. Musk is a formidable innovator. But on self-driving cars, as well as Mars, data centres in space, robots and AI, we should treat his prophecies with caution.

Patrick Grady, Brussels

To The Economist

Elon Musk's Martian aspirations aren't all crazy. His resources could fund a fleet of Starship rockets, each carrying robots along with solar-energy collectors and other equipment. So, within his lifetime, Mars could be populated with thousands of robots, impervious to heat or cold, doing construction, mining or exploration. Few humans would aspire to end their days in the hostile Martian environment. But Musk does. He has said he would like to "die on Mars, just not on impact".

He could ensure unique privileges. His regiments of robots could be tasked with creating a domed mansion to accommodate him, receive him royally on his arrival, and service his needs in his final years. After death, his body could be preserved in a mausoleum that would outlast any artefact on Earth, a uniquely durable memorial to human aspirations and follies that should satisfy any megalomaniacal aspirations. Lord Martin Rees, former astronomer royal, Trinity College, University of Cambridge

narrative; in fact, spending on non-pensioner social security has remained at about 5% of GDP for the past decade.

Social security was one of the main victims of austerity, leaving benefits too low to meet basic needs – hence the increased reliance on food banks. If members had been presented with all the evidence showing that improving social security represents the most effective way of tackling child poverty, I suspect they may have been more supportive of spending in this area.

The Institute for Government has suggested that it should be seen as preventive spending, reducing the demand on acute services. I trust that the "senior strategists in Downing Street" with whom the survey findings were shared won't take the wrong lessons from them. Ruth Lister, Labour, House of Lords

Negative discrimination?

To The Times

In his article "Arday affair is an own goal for Cambridge", Roger Mosey tells us

that, in 2013, Cambridge University's student body was "disproportionately white compared with modern Britain". This he judged to be "a problem", presumably because he assumed it was unjust. Thirteen years later, he reports with enthusiasm that 35% of Cambridge's new UK undergraduates come from ethnic minorities, including 58% of economics students and 66% of medics.

And yet the black and ethnic minority proportion of the total population is 18%. If the current disproportion is not also unjust, it must be because non-white Britons are generally far better educated than white ones. But if it is unjust, it can only be because non-white applicants have been unfairly preferred to better white ones. Lord Biggar, House of Lords

Top quality music

To the Financial Times

Your correspondent Wilfrid Legg's letter on the musical appeal of André Rieu and John Wilson confuses popularity with, for want of a better

word, quality. Nobody expects the world's bestselling car to be a top-quality product. It is conceived, manufactured and marketed to appeal to the mass market. A critic explains nuances between bestselling and best available. They are rarely the same.

David Salisbury, Haddenham, Buckinghamshire

Against the grain

To The Daily Telegraph

In 1986, diesel cost me 10p a litre, fertiliser £90 a ton and electricity 4p a unit. I was selling wheat for £100 a ton. Now, diesel costs me £1 a litre, fertiliser £500 a ton and electricity 25p a unit. Wheat is worth £190 a ton. That's before any fixed costs. A tractor might cost £250,000, and a combine harvester £750,000. Even without taking this drought into account, it makes no sense at all. William Rusbridge, Tregony, Cornwall

The AI detector test

To The Economist

I can confirm that programs designed to detect AI-generated text are indeed "black-box algorithms that can give false positives". I ran some texts through an AI detector. Samuel Beckett's Krap's Last Tape and Happy Days were judged likely to be 86% and 84% AI-generated. The "Sermon on the Mount" was thought to be 100% AI-generated. The software judged a speech by Donald Trump to be 100% human-generated. Brendan Lyons, Dublin

Order! Order!

To The Guardian

Surely it's time to rename PMQs to PMDATQs – Prime Minister Doesn't Answer the Questions. Mary Hutty, Bath

"Remember when everyone was, like, really into bronze?"

● Letters have been edited

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

© THE NEW YORKER

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ARTS

Review of reviews: Books

23

Book of the week

The August Coup

by Robert Service

Picador 432pp £30

The Week Bookshop £26.99 (incl. p&p)

Having lasted 74 years, Marxist-Leninist rule in Russia unravelled very suddenly, said John Simpson in The Guardian. For Robert Service – “the English-speaking world’s foremost historian of 20th century Russia” – the pivotal moment came in August 1991, when an attempted coup showed just

how hollowed out the “system of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev” had become. The Berlin Wall had fallen some 15 months earlier and the USSR was starting to fall apart. President Gorbachev’s much-vaunted policies of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) had proven “wholly ineffective” in addressing the problems of a failing superstate and he was locked in a bitter contest with his rival, Boris Yeltsin (pictured), the president of the powerful Russian Republic, who was demanding more autonomy for the USSR’s republics.

The plotters, a small group of “diehard apparatchiks” led by KGB boss Vladimir Kryuchkov, were convinced that neither man had the answer, said Edward Lucas in The Times. Instead, they wanted to restore as much Soviet power as possible. For

Gorbachev, the first hint of trouble came “when the phones at his seaside villa stopped working”. Soon, he was under house arrest. But after just three days, the putsch fell apart, as its leaders revealed themselves to be “incompetent, irresolute and unmemorable”. At their only press conference, one of them was visibly drunk. So Gorbachev was nominally restored to power, but the real victor was the mercurial, binge-drinking Yeltsin. Having provided the “defining image” of the crisis, when he climbed aboard a tank to decry the putsch, he seized the momentum, and four months later, presided over “the disintegration of the Soviet Union”.

Many books have been published about the end of the Soviet era, said Victor Sebestyen in The Spectator. But in The August Coup, Service – the biographer of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin – gives us the “most definitive” account yet. Despite their many flaws, he praises Gorbachev and Yeltsin for overseeing the USSR’s collapse with “little violence, a free and independent Ukraine and genuine hope for a democratic, peaceful future”. In the light of what has happened since, their achievements “look greater still”. Service guides us through a chaotic period with “ease and grace”, said John Simpson. Drawing on a vast array of sources, he has used his “magnificent grasp” of 20th century history, and wonderfully lucid writing, to explain the “ludicrous” way in which the USSR ended: “not with a bang, but with the clink of vodka bottles”.

Mr. Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles

by Philip Norman

Simon & Schuster 368pp £30

Brian Epstein was “the visionary who gave the world the Beatles”, said Wesley Stace in The Wall Street Journal. Now, Philip Norman – the “Beatles completist”, who has written books about John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison – has turned his attention to the Fab Four’s first manager. Epstein was not around at their genesis.

He was busy expanding the record department at his family’s music store in Liverpool. But one day in 1961, a customer asked for My Bonnie, a single on which a local band had played the backing track. Two weeks later, Epstein put on his polished brogues, and visited the Cavern Club to see what the fuss was about. Swept away, he offered the band his services. He swapped Pete Best on drums for Ringo, dressed them in suits and put them in touch with George Martin. By 1964 they were the biggest band in the world. Three years later, Epstein was dead – killed by an accidental overdose aged 32.

Without Epstein, “we may never have heard” of the Fab Four, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. The impresario had “top-notch” artistic instincts and real integrity: he loved his “boys”, and took pains to be fair to them in business. He also lusted after them, especially Lennon, and understood their appeal to teenage girls. So they lucked out when he came to them; but while he seemed rich and sophisticated to a group of Liverpool lads playing in a cellar bar, he was not really a big shot. He made them a fortune, but he also lost them money, and before long, he sensed that they were outgrowing him. He fell into a depression, and his reliance on drink and drugs became more pronounced. This is a well-written and “necessary” book, about a complex man – a middle-class Jew and a closeted homosexual, with a difficult insider-outsider status in 1960s Britain.

Novel of the week

Passage

by Colin Thubron

Chatto & Windus 144pp £14.99

The Week Bookshop £12.99

Like Graham Greene and Norman Lewis, Colin Thubron, now 87, belongs to that “small fraternity of men” who are both travel writers and novelists, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Sunday Times. In his non-fiction books, he has treated journeys as “opportunities for moral inquiry” – but in Passage, his ninth novel (“or novella, really”), he presents us with a set of travellers who “barely understand themselves, let alone Egypt”, the country they are visiting.

As we discover, said Rachel Armitage in Literary Review, Egypt turns out to be an “ill-advised holiday destination” for Kathleen, an actress recovering from brain surgery, Robert, her neurologist husband, and Alan, his brother. We follow them as they prepare for the trip, then as they explore Egypt’s “mystical past and modern politics”, and find there is a gap between “orientalist fancy” and the “real” Egypt. The novel excels in the detail, but with a narrative that switches between the perspectives of the trio, sometimes mid-paragraph, the overall effect is “a kind of pointillism, with the bigger picture none too clear even though individual dots are vivid”.

THE WEEK Bookshop

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Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm

15 August 2026

THE WEEK

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24 ARTS

Drama

Theatre: Game of Thrones: The Mad King

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (01789-331111). Until 5 September

Run time: 3hrs 40mins

★★★★

"Five years in the making and a decade in the dreaming," the RSC's addition to the Game of Thrones universe – a prequel set 15 years before George R.R. Martin's first novel in the series – is a "titanic display" of theatrical magic, said Sarah Crompton on What's on Stage. Written by Duncan Macmillan and directed by Dominic Cooke, it's "a triumph; a soaring, surging spectacle and a latter-day history play, both serious and popular". Presented on a vast, open stage in the shape of a cross, it boasts extraordinary moments of theatrical daring. There is a thrilling opening procession, in which kings and princes ride in on magnificent armoured horses – puppets operated by handlers, War

Horse-style – and the battles are "sensationally" realised: "sections of armour, weapons, bodies fly across the ground and air with a terrific sense of impetus and weight".

The RSC has "pulled off a coup" with this spellbinding evening, agreed Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. The play – which should appeal to both "newbies and devotees" – is a gripping excavation of the "realm-destabilising" backstory to Martin's saga. Michael Shaeffer is "electrifying" and deeply strange as the mad king Aerys II Targaryen, combining the distracted air of Shakespeare's Lear with the villainy of Richard III. And the whole drama has a "propulsive energy redolent" of the Bard's

A "titanic display" of theatrical magic

history plays – "only here there are puppeteered dragons too".

Sensitive viewers may be relieved to learn that there's no chance of a severed head landing in their lap, said Clive Davis in The Times. "The sex, too, has been toned down to PG levels." That makes sense, if you want to draw in families. But the dilution of the sex and gore, plus relative lack of pace, makes for an evening that is plodding at times, and that "seldom comes close to matching the grim aura" of the TV series. Macmillan's script is short on poetry, and there is some shouty acting from the supporting cast. You "expect better of the RSC". It's admittedly heavy on jousts and battles, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian, but I thoroughly

enjoyed it. The RSC is no doubt praying for a big Matilda-style commercial transfer; watch this space.

The week's other opening

Cats Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, London NW1 (0333-400 3562). Until 19 September

Drew McDnie's lively, well-sung, confident revival restores much of the damage done to the beloved (albeit plot-free) Lloyd Webber musical by the disastrous 2019 Hollywood film. "This Cats is tremendous fun. Dignity is restored" (Daily Telegraph).

Theatre: The Silence of the Lambs

Curve, Leicester, Theatre Royal, Newcastle, and on (silenceofthelambsplay.com) Run time: 2hrs 15mins

★★★

Given the recent fashion for screen-to-stage adaptations, it was perhaps only a matter of time before someone turned their attention to Jonathan Demme's hit film The Silence of the Lambs (1991), said Nick Ferris in The Daily Telegraph. Scripted by the American playwright Gina Gionfriddo, and directed by Nikolai Foster at the Leicester Curve, this new production is not a full-throttle success. But it's a "surprisingly tasty treat" even so, which feels primed for commercial success. Like the film, it conjures an

"extraordinarily dark world", making good use of scary prosthetics and video projections without veering into "gothic-camp". John Partridge is convincing as Hannibal Lecter (though less menacing than Anthony Hopkins); and Mollie Gallagher makes a creditable stage debut as a Jodie Foster-like Clarice Starling. Yet the standout turn here is from Sam Jackson who, as the serial killer Buffalo Bill, brilliantly captures "the psychopathic ability" to switch fluidly "between the banal and the obscene".

Strictly speaking, this is not an adaptation of the film but of Thomas Harris's original novel, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian. However, it does successfully recreate the film's uneasy mix of the "electrifying" and the horrific, and the story is staged in a way that feels cinematic, while maximising the live impact of the sometimes "rawly appalling" events. Gionfriddo, a "front-rank

John Partride as Lector: an "extraordinarily dark world"

dramatist", foregrounds the "pervasive sexism" of the 1983 setting, and gives Buffalo Bill's female victims more plot-time and agency than either the film or the novel. Daringly, she also plays up the ("warped") pseudo-romantic aspect of the Lecter-Starling relationship.

I found the production most effective when it diverges from the film, said Holly O'Mahony in The Stage. For example, when Lecter breaks out of his chains here, it leads to a full-blown fight sequence which ends with him rising over his defeated

opponent, "thrumming with excitement". This is a "thrilling" moment. At other points, however, the show feels hampered by its efforts to recreate familiar visual motifs. Nevertheless, there is an "admirable ambition to presenting this grisly tale on stage for the first time, and plenty to make the squeamish baulk".

Album of the week

Arun Sood and Angeline Morrison: Donn/Dubh Real World £27

This superb album from two of Britain's most exciting folk musicians, both of Hebridean heritage, is inspired by 10th century Celtic cantos. It melds "traditional Gaelic texts and tunes with distortion, drone, dream-pop and post-rock", and its "ambitions unpeel with every tantalising listen" (Guardian).

Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don't miss; 1 star=don't bother)

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

© JOHAN PERSSON; MARC STEINER

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Film & TV

ARTS 25

The Summer Book

1hr 35mins (PG)

Adaptation of Tove Jansson's much-loved book

Tove Jansson is best known for the Moomins – “the melancholy hippo-like creatures” now seen everywhere from mugs to baseball caps, said Jonathan Romney in the FT. But the Finnish writer also published books for adults. Her 1972 novel The Summer Book is a modern classic in Scandinavia, and became a cult hit elsewhere after being reissued in English in 2003. Now, it has been adapted for the screen. Directed by Charlie McDowell (son of Malcolm), this “atmospheric film” will transport you to the “breezy calm of a small island in the Gulf of Finland”, where earnest eight-year-old Sophia (Emily Matthews) is spending the summer after her mother’s death. For company, she has her artist grandmother (Glenn Close) – a “placid powerhouse of twinkling wisdom” – and her grieving, distant father (Anders Danielsen Lie). Not much happens; and at times the story feels “pathologically benign”. But it is “beautifully photographed... all sunsets and wildflowers, knitwear and moss”.

There are “strong performances at either end of the age spectrum”, said Jenny McCartney in The Sunday Times, but the “necessary sense of Finnish originality” and “oddity” has been lost. The pace is slow, the score is “overly insistent” and the visual metaphors – repeated shots of dying pipe-tobacco embers, and a sapling being held up – are “heavy-handed”. It “didn’t beguile me as much as it wanted to, or as much as I hoped it would”. Still, the element that is central to Jansson’s book – the natural world – is beautifully observed, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. Gradually, the father emerges from his own grief to help his daughter, while the grandmother makes peace with the fact that the last season of her own life is almost at a close. It is a “muted but moving picture”.

Love Me Tender

2hrs 14mins (15)

Compelling custody-battle drama based on a French bestseller

A woman is “torn between motherhood and selfhood, duty and freedom” in this “brutal custody drama” based on a bestselling work of autofiction by the French writer Constance Debré, said India Lawrence on Time Out. Vicky Krieps plays Clémence, “a make-up-free, short-haired, scooter-riding ex-lawyer” who has abandoned her successful legal career to become a writer. She has an amicable relationship with her former husband Laurent (Antoine Reinartz), with whom she shares custody of their eight-year-old son, Paul. But when Clémence tells Laurent that she is now dating women, he claims she is an unfit mother and files for sole custody. There follows a years-long battle “fuelled by Laurent’s infuriating, and borderline evil, determination to take Paul away from Clémence entirely”. It makes for a “compelling” film that is “utterly enraging” too.

Love Me Tender “hits its mark with painful accuracy”, said Jessica Kiang in Variety. While Clémence tries to carry on with her professional and romantic life, she is consumed by the “near-full-time job of fighting through a legal quagmire”. For 18 months, she is denied access to her son – and even after that, she’s restricted to brief sessions under supervision. I wasn’t totally convinced, said Larushka Ivan-Zadeh in The Times. Clémence’s passivity sometimes feels “implausible”, and the lengthy scenes set in queer techno nightclubs could have done with a “good snip”. Yet Krieps keeps it all “compelling”, as her character “contracts into something pale, shaven-headed and almost saint-like”, a “warrior, victim and fugitive from feeling”; and the relationship between mother and son is “heartbreakingly vivid”. You will be hooked “right up to its unpredictable, provocative ending”.

A Child of My Own

1hr 36mins (15)

Bizarre true-crime tale

This “cheekily inquisitive docudrama” on Netflix is based on a true story that briefly caused a tabloid sensation in Mexico – and at times, it is “hardly believable”, said Phil Hoad in The Guardian. After suffering three miscarriages and under intense pressure from her husband and in-laws to have a baby, Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza (known as Ale) resorts to desperate measures. At the hospital where she works she meets Mayra, a single mother who is pregnant and wants an abortion. Instead, Ale offers to take the baby once it’s born, and tells people she is pregnant. She eats copiously to gain weight, and a doctor – convinced he’s heard a heartbeat – approves her maternity leave. These events, told from Ale’s perspective, are depicted in “candy-coloured” reconstructions using actors. Then, as soon as Ale walks out of the hospital with the baby in a gift bag, the film switches to a “sobering real-life register”. Arrested soon after, Ale was convicted of child kidnapping and sent to jail.

In the second half, director Maite Alberdi shifts to looking at the facts, said Guy Lodge in Variety, which throws up uncertainties and ambiguities. The real Mayra insists she never agreed to give up her baby, while from her jail cell, Ale continues to insist that she was telling the truth. Either way, she comes across as “a sympathetic figure”; some of the strongest footage shows her life in prison, where she spent 14 years. She emerges “neither as outright wrongdoer nor victim, rather as a beleaguered, fragile woman swallowed up by her own intrigue”, said Jonathan Romney in the FT. It is a “fascinating film” – “one that you might find highly entertaining against your better judgement”.

Possession: a gothic thriller that grapples with important questions

“Like many a gothic thriller”, Possession (Sky Atlantic) “is set around a creepy old house”, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. The difference is that this one stands on the site of a former slave plantation in Jamaica. Its owner has died and has cut his only son, Oliver (Jonny Lee Miller), out of his will, and left his £50m estate to a near stranger – a local named Cudjoe East (Sheldon Shepherd). British lawyer Claudia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is sent out by her firm to resolve the situation, partly because she has a Jamaican mother. She assumes that Cudjoe will turn out to be a simple fraudster, but things turn out to be stranger than anticipated.

“What It allows is a dual-firmline mystery,” said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. One strand unfolds in the present day; the other takes us back to the

Mbatha-Raw as Claudia

1700s, when the estate was worked by enslaved people under the “increasingly cruel” rule of Oliver’s ancestors. Cudjoe claims to be 292 years old, and one of those people. Images from Claudia’s own nightmares start appearing in real life, and the spirits believed by locals to infuse the land grow increasingly restless. Some may find the resort to the paranormal a cop-out, but ultimately, this is a powerful drama about unadmitted guilt, and whether justice for some crimes is possible.

Via the £50m legacy, the series, which boasts some fine performances, addresses the issue of reparations for slavery, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph. It is a worthy one, so it is a pity that in the midst of this, some of “the horror scenes can come over as unintentionally funny”.

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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26 ARTS

Art

Exhibition of the week Frank Bowling: Seeking the Sublime

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (01223-332900, fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk). Until 17 January 2027

Frank Bowling is one of our greatest living painters. Born in what was then British Guiana in 1934, he came to London aged 19 with dreams of becoming a writer or a poet. But while doing national service, he met the artist Keith Critchlow who introduced him to the city's great art museums, said Rochelle Roberts in Studio International. Bowling became "obsessed" with painting – Old Masters and the work of such contemporary greats as Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach – and was thus set on the "road to becoming an artist" himself. This small exhibition "offers an intimate and engaged" look at his long career, tracing his evolution from figurative to abstract art via just ten paintings. These include his breakthrough work, realised soon after he graduated from the Royal College of Art. Beggar No. 5 (1962/63) depicts a scene from his childhood, in which a "ragged-looking" man stands outside a shop. His mother ran such a shop, and would sometimes let homeless people in for a meal, provided they first had their feet washed by the young Frank – a task he said he found "traumatic".

It took Bowling a while to find his voice, said Gabrielle Schwarz in Apollo.

His early works are figurative, expressive, and a bit derivative (notably of Bacon). But following his move to New York in 1966, he came into his own, as a modernist concerned above all with what he called "the possibilities of paint". In the mid-1970s he created his series of "poured" paintings, made by tipping thin

2007's Pondlife (After Millais): "remarkable"

acrylics in various colours over tilted canvases. Two of these are on show here, along with 1980's Potarospray – "a densely-layered and textured scramble of amorphous shapes and lines". Yet the emphasis is on continuity not rupture: in the early works, figures blur in shape and form; in later ones, elements of the external world still intrude on "the ostensibly pure painterly form".

Although, in the 1950s, Bowling had expressed an ambition to paint "my people, that is black people", he seems to have felt "liberated" by his move into an arena where the work is judged without reference to the identity of the artist, said Ben Eastham in The Guardian. You can feel that freedom in the "glorious" poured painting Lenoraseas (1976). It consists of stripes of "pinks, yellows, whites and purples". Yet its texture hints that there is more to this piece than its dazzling optical effect; and the title alludes to a village where the Amazon meets the Atlantic. It is a painting of a river flowing into the ocean that both Bowling and his ancestors crossed. A painting, as Bowling says, can be a lot of things, at the same time. Yet "the most remarkable" piece here is 2007's

Pondlife (After Millais), which turns that most "narratively overburdened" of British paintings – Millais' Ophelia – into an "impressionistic atmosphere", humid, hazy, decaying. In this "technically sophisticated work", the eye is forced "around the image, until it falls into it".

Where to buy...

The Week reviews an exhibition in a private gallery

Pierre Bergian

at Purdy Hicks Gallery

We don't see them much here, but the grand art collections of Europe are stuffed with fabulous baroque paintings of... art collections. These works, typically commissioned by the nobility from skilled painters, recorded the earthly riches of a patron without evoking the morbidity of the vanitas still-life tradition. Belgian artist Pierre Bergian (b.1965) has clearly spent years studying such works, as well as architecture and archaeology. His paintings and drawings typically depict ornate Italianate rooms with stucco detail, the walls of which host treasures both ancient and modern. Some of the compositions in Fragments of Place are based on real spaces: one captures the studio of the miserable postwar artist

Museum Ladder (2026), 40cm x 47.5cm

Bernard Buffet, another is of Frederic Leighton's studio in Holland Park. Most, however, are imaginary spaces incorporating observed detail, the style less reminiscent of the baroque than it is John Minton's illustrations for Elizabeth David's early cookbooks. This is no bad thing. Prices range from £3,200 to £6,900.

25 Thurloe Street, London SW7 (020-7401 9229). Until 28 August

Recreating the perfect man

In the fifth century BC, the Greek sculptor Polykleitos created a figure of a muscular young man that was believed to represent the human body in its most perfect, balanced form. Known as the Canon, after the lost treatise in which Polykleitos explained his mathematical principles, this bronze

– lost long ago – provided the basis for countless marble statues in antiquity, and solidified an ideal that was embraced by the likes of Michelangelo. Now, archaeologists at Pompeii have drawn on surviving Roman copies – including one found at Pompeii in 1793 – as well as 19th century casts of those works, made in Naples, to produce a bronze that they say is the closest ever recreation of it. It used be thought that the Canon, also often known as Doryphoros, carried a spear; the research team now think that the Canon carried a javelin, and that Doryphoros was a separate statue (also lost) of a younger man carrying a spear.

© FRANK BOWLING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DACE 2025

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

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The List

ARTS 27

The week's guide to what's worth seeing

Showing now

The acclaimed retrospective of the artist Hurvin Anderson – born in Britain to Jamaican parents – is entering its final week. His colour-drenched paintings of the UK and the Caribbean are “transfixing” (Daily Telegraph). Ends 23 August, Tate Britain, London SW1 (tate.org.uk).

Theatre-lovers take note – now is also the last chance to catch Emily Lim’s “effervescent” production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe (FT). Ends 29 August, Globe Theatre, London SE1 (shakespearesglobe.com).

A hit at the Edinburgh Fringe two years ago, Oliver Emanuel and Gareth Williams’s musical A History of Paper, which follows a couple’s romance through its paper trail, has now been revived in Pitlochry. Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson star. Until 12 September, Pitlochry Festival Theatre (pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com); 16-19 September, Dundee Rep (dundeerep.co.uk).

Book now

At the brand-new Big Brue festival of ideas, Misha Glenny and George Osborne will talk about the impact of AI, Dominic West and Bob Geldof will celebrate poetry, and Prue Leith and Mariella Frostrup will explore political rifts within families. 19-20 September, Hauser & Wirth, Bruton, Somerset (bigbrue.com).

Ben Whishaw and Kathryn Hunter star in Eurotrash, a stage adaptation of Christian Kracht’s 2021 blackly comic bestseller about

Hurvin Anderson’s Audition (1998) at Tate Britain

a mother and son’s road trip through the Swiss Alps to give away their tainted family fortune. Tickets are selling fast. 13 November-9 January 2027, Young Vic, London SE1 (youngvic.org).

Michael Sheen is to play Salieri in a new production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, with Callum Scott Howells as Mozart. From 9-27 March 2027, New Theatre, Cardiff; 17 April-7 August 2027, Noël Coward Theatre, London WC2 (amadeustheplay.com).

Just out in paperback

The Traitors Circle by Jonathan Freedland (John Murray £12.99). In 1943, a group of liberal-minded Germans plotted to bring down Hitler – until one of them turned traitor. In Freedland’s hands, this story of courage and betrayal is “as gripping as a thriller” (i Paper).

Best books...

Bettany Hughes

The historian, author and broadcaster picks her five favourite books. Her new book for children, There Was an Egyptian in Your School, is out now (Puffin £8.99) and her documentary series Bettany Hughes’ Lost Worlds: Dawn of Civilisations is on C4

The Pursuit of The Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages by Norman Cohn, 1957 (Vintage £20). I was blown away by this book about the development of the crazed apocalyptic Christian movements, such as the flagellants and choreomaniacs, that won huge numbers of followers in the Middle Ages. It introduces us to ordinary people, their hopes and fears.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, 1847 (Penguin £8.99). I reread this at least 15 times, mostly between the ages of

13 and 17, when I lived in every word. This passionately principled novel was my North Star growing up.

The Penguin Book of Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley, 2010 (Penguin £12.99). Here Tyldesley, a brilliant Egyptologist, approaches the world of the ancient Egyptians through their myths and stories. It’s a great way to get under the skin of Egyptian life and run-of-the-mill Egyptian men and women.

The Odyssey by Homer, c.8th century BC, trans. Emily

Wilson (W.W. Norton £14.99). I first read a potted version when I was at school aged 11 and remember being astonished by these incredible myths. I then had to learn to read it in the original Greek, and I adored the process of stitching it together from this difficult ancient language. Wilson’s translation is excellent, as is Robert Fagles’.

Pericles by Paul Cartledge, 2026 (Reaktion £15.99). An expansive, exacting and epic study of one of the most fascinating of characters from Ancient Greek history. One of the geniuses of Pericles was the inspiration he took from his courtesan consort, Aspasia. A reminder that even though women were second-class citizens in ancient Athens – and Aspasia as a foreigner enjoyed even fewer rights – women still had standing in one of the most influential epochs of world history.

Television

Programmes

Kabul Six-part Franco-German thriller set against the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Sat 15 Aug, BBC4 21:00 & 21:50 (50 and 55mins respectively).

Sunny Nights Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden star in a playful Australian crime caper about a pair of American siblings who get mixed up in Sydney’s seedier side while flogging their self-tanning spray. Sun 16 Aug, ITV1 22:15 (60mins).

Buried with Michael Sheen The actor joins forces with journalists and environmental experts to dig into the dumping of Monsanto-made forever chemicals in the Welsh countryside. Mon 17 Aug, BBC2 21:00 (60mins).

The Great ADHD Myth?

NHS psychiatrist Max Pemberton questions whether ADHD really is a neurodevelopmental disorder and asks whether modern life is contributing to the rise in diagnoses. Tue 18 Aug, C4 20:00 (60mins).

Ludwig The cosy crime series starring David Mitchell as the crossword-setter-turned-sleuth returns. With Anna Maxwell Martin. Thu 20 Aug, BBC1 21:00 (60mins).

Films

Top Hat (1935) Classic comedy-romance starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. With songs by Irving Berlin. Sun 16 Aug, BBC2 09.30 (95mins).

Tár (2022) Cate Blanchett is magnetic as an imperious conductor in Todd Field’s powerful psychological drama. Fri 21 Aug, BBC2 00:05 (150mins).

New to streaming

The Shards Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s gruesome 2023 novel about privileged teens in 1980s LA is a glossy affair that has divided critics. On Disney+.

Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy Comedian Mo Gilligan takes a “stark and shocking” look at the grim but emotionally complex world of fried chicken shops (Times). On Netflix.

© LARINA ANNURA PERNANES, SANDSTONE GLOBAL

Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop (theweekbookshop.co.uk). For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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28

Best properties

Country houses suitable for commuters

Northumberland:

Loughbrow House Hexham. An impressive Victorian country house set in mature gardens, less than 30 minutes' drive from Newcastle. 7 beds, 5 baths, kitchen/diner, 4 receps, 3-bed self-contained cottage, 2-bed self-contained annexe, garden, garage. OIEO £2.1m; Galbraith (01434-693693).

Oxfordshire:

Honeysuckle Cottage, Shenington. Charming period cottage with far-reaching rural views. The cities of Coventry and Oxford are within easy reach. 2 beds, family bath, kitchen, 2 receps, garden, off-street parking. £600,000; Savills (01295-228000).

▲ West Sussex: Old Well Cottage, West Harting. A fine Grade II house within the South Downs National Park, close to Portsmouth and 4.5 miles from Petersfield, with easy railway access to London. 4 beds, 3 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 3 receps, heated pool, garden, parking. £1.985m; Savills (01798-345980).

Norfolk:

Martyrs Cottage, East Bilney. A magnificent Grade II Tudor house with a 2-bed annexe that is currently operating as a thriving five-star-rated Airbnb. The property is just under 20 miles from Norwich. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 2 receps, garden, parking. £750,000; Sowerbys (01362-693591).

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

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on the market

29

◄ Devon: Great Gutton Farmhouse, Crediton. Characterful Grade II* farmhouse with approx. 21 acres of land and a thriving holiday letting business comprising of five cottages. 6 beds, 4 baths, kitchen, 4 receps, 4-bed self-contained barn, two 1-bed self-contained barns, two 2-bed self-contained annexes, garden, indoor pool, parking. £2.5m; Knight Frank (01392-848846).

▼ Flintshire: Lislea House, Northop. An elegant Grade II Georgian villa set in mature gardens of approx. 1.4 acres and framed against the backdrop of St Eurgain and St Peter's Church, whose striking tower dominates the village skyline. Close to Wrexham, Liverpool and Manchester. 4 beds, 3 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, garage. OIEO £900,000; Tulloch & Carter (01244-662598).

▼ Norfolk: Walnut Shade, Suton. This delightful Grade II medieval former hall house is set within approx. 2.5 acres, and is close to Norwich and Cambridge. 5 beds, 3 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, study, garden, outbuildings, garage, parking. £995,000; Sowerbys (01603-761441).

◄ Kent: Malmains Oast, Pluckley. An enchanting twin-roundel Kentish oast house six miles from Ashford, with easy access to London. 5 beds, 3 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, utility, 3 receps, garden, outbuildings, workshop/garage. OIEO £1.2m; Warner Gray (01580-766044).

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

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LEISURE

Food & Drink

31

Banquet 88 Unit 2, Commodity Quay, London E1 (020-3951 4389)

London is “full of restaurants offering unremarkable dumplings, many of which began life in the freezer cabinet at a branch of Wing Yip”, says Jay Rayner in the Financial Times. That makes it well worth travelling to this new Cantonese place in St Katharine Docks, in east London. The decor is “very much part of the functional genre of Chinese restaurant”, but the food here is rather special. From the selection of steamed dim sum we have “crystal scallop dumplings of an almost dazzling whiteness”, and pork and prawn siu mai, “which have profound bite and succulence”. From the fried selection, we order crisp-bottomed buns filled with “deeply sauced and sticky minced roasted duck”. There’s much else besides: “properly rendered” crispy pork belly; “darkly lacquered” Cantonese roast duck, and an “extraordinary dish” of pork-stuffed morel mushrooms stir-fried with the “crispest” asparagus. We leave with a feeling of having barely scratched the sides of the lengthy menu, and “I want to return for an awful lot of things”. Dim sum and appetisers £7-£59; main dishes £15-£120.

Isca Borde Hill, Borde Hill Lane, Haywards Heath, Sussex (01444-441102)

This new restaurant on the Borde Hill estate in West Sussex “draws both its inspiration and its crops” from the walled garden it sits beside, says William Sitwell

Isca: “draws inspiration” from its walled garden

in The Daily Telegraph. But while other places would want to force this concept “down your throat”, Isca delivers it quite tenderly. Our evening kicks off with an “exceptional” margarita, sipped on a terrace. Featuring pickled magnolia and rhubarb, it tastes to me “like a triumph of 50 years of experiments in blending booze with plants”. Having munched on some excellent charcuterie, we move indoors for dinner in a conservatory dining room that is a triumph – a grand palace softened by plants and sofas. Bread is a “heavenly cake-like mix of oats and treacle with whipped butter”. Cured trout comes with labneh and a “dazzling tweezering” of wild flowers – resulting in a dish that tastes as

“fresh and vital” as it looks. Monkfish is served on “gorgeous white beans, with some bitter crunch from endive”. Isca is a “fabulous” restaurant, which “respects the ancient lores of plants while serving them up in a wholly modern way”. Dinner for two, excluding drinks and service: £131.

Khao-So-i 9-10 Market Place, London W1 (khaosoilondon.com)

“Despite being a regional classic”, the northern Thai curry noodle soup khao soi has long “been near impossible to find” in Britain, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. Happily, that has now changed, with the opening of Khao-So-i in central London. With its “elegant ceramics” and “decent wine list”, the place is “more upmarket than your average Chiang Mai joint”. And so are the prices: a bowl of soup costs £26. On the other hand, this is “no ordinary” khao soi. The restaurant serves several versions – “wagyu, scallops, even fresh langoustines” – but my advice is to “start with the classic beef”. In a “complex, murky and masterful” broth, you’ll find fresh-made egg noodles, chunks of “falling-apart” beef, and “slices of just-chewy sirloin”. On the side are Yunnanese-style pickled greens, raw shallot and coriander, extra coconut milk, dried chillies and a wedge of lime: “this is a dish you very much make your own”. The result is a “gloriously balanced symphony of taste, texture and downright delight” – and an “utterly beguiling taste of north Thailand” in the heart of London.

Recipe of the week: mozzarella, peaches and anchovies

I would only recommend making this dish – which has converted even a few hardened anchovy haters – during the summer, when peaches are at their best, says Dara Klein. You can use flat peaches, white peaches, yellow nectarines, white nectarines – whatever looks good at the time and feels ripe. And use the freshest, highest-quality mozzarella you can find. I like to serve the dish with fresh sourdough, ciabatta or focaccia, to mop up the juices.

Serves 3-4

370g fresh mozzarella 400g peaches ½ shallot or Tropea onion 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil ½ tbsp moscatel or red-wine vinegar 1 tsp dried oregano (the wild variety if you can find it), plus extra for sprinkling 1 tsp lemon juice zest of ½ a lemon 1 x 30g tin of anchovy fillets in olive oil sea salt

• Drain the mozzarella and place on a piece of kitchen paper to dry. Allow the cheese to come to room temperature, this may take around 30mins.
• Meanwhile, wash the peaches and slice them in half, removing the stones. Cut each half into a variety of medium-sized chunks, cutting on an angle. Finely slice the shallot or onion.
• Add the peaches and shallot to a mixing bowl along with a large pinch of salt, the olive oil, vinegar, dried oregano, lemon juice and zest. Stir thoroughly to combine. Taste the dressing with a piece of peach and adjust very gradually with more salt, vinegar or lemon juice.
• Tear the mozzarella into large pieces. I like to taste a tiny bit to check for saltiness. Many

mozzarelle are already seasoned, so it’s worth checking whether you need to add any salt.

• Remove the anchovies from their oil and blot with some kitchen paper. If they are particularly thick, slice in half lengthways.
• Distribute the mozzarella evenly across four plates (alternatively you can use a large platter). Season with salt, if needed. Spoon the peach mixture over and around the cheese, leaving the dressing in the bowl. Drape the anchovies over the peaches and mozzarella.
• Whisk the dressing a couple of times to re-emulsify, then spoon over each dish. Sprinkle a little more oregano on top and serve immediately with fresh sourdough, ciabatta or focaccia.

Taken from La Trattoria: Intuitive Italian cooking by Dana Klein, published by Ebury at £30. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £26.99 (incl. p&p), visit theweekbookshop.co.uk to place your order, or call 020-3176 3835 to speak to a bookseller

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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32 LEISURE

Consumer

New cars: what the critics say

Volkswagen T-Roc from £35,700

Autocar

The T-Roc is currently Volkswagen's biggest-selling car in Europe, and now we have this Mk2. It's more efficient and spacious, with better safety features and a more sophisticated interior. A switch to the updated MQB Evo platform brings more advanced tech, and the engine line-up is now hybrid only: with four 48V mild-hybrid options, and two-full hybrid models, but no PHEV or diesels.

The Daily Telegraph

Essentially a raised Golf, the “jolly” new T-Roc feels “nippy and brisk” and can do 0-62mph in 8.9 seconds. The suspension is “quietly competent” if you don’t push it too hard. The steering is fluid and responsive, body roll in the corners is well checked and the brakes are efficient with “good pedal feel”. This compact crossover is economical, refined and practical, but it’s “not as much fun as before”.

Car Magazine

Some of the T-Roc's fun has been lost in the interior too, which feels a bit monochrome without the previous bright accents. The Mk2 is 12cm longer, so there's a bit more rear legroom, and boot space is up to a "useful" 475 litres. There's lots of soft-touch material on the dashboard, the screen is "super-responsive" with useful shortcuts, but there are nearly no physical buttons, just a central rotary dial.

The best... kit for wildlife watchers

Hawke Vantage HD 10x42

binoculars These entry-level binoculars produce "bright, sharp", "colour-accurate images". Made from rubber-armoured polycarbonate, they weigh 570g. They are waterproof and fog proof, and have multi-

coated lenses and come with a neck strap and a carry case (on sale at £169; birders-store.co.uk).

▶ NatureSpy Helarctos

Solar Trail camera Strap it to a tree or fence and this camera will detect motion at up to 65ft, and record 4k video and high resolution stills day and night. A Which? Best Buy, it has a built-in solar panel to keep the battery topped up, and Wi-Fi so you can see footage via the app from up to 30ft away (£140; naturespy.org).

▲ Rite in the Rain Weatherproof Side Spiral Kit Founded in the US in 1916, Rite in the Rain makes stationery that repels water, sweat, grease and mud. This set, which is slim enough to slip into a pocket, consists of a tough zipped cover, a 64-page notebook and an all-weather metal pen (£57; amazon.co.uk).

▶ Akaso Seemor-200 night-vision binoculars With a range of up to 1,640ft, these AI-powered night-vision binoculars deliver full-colour footage in near

darkness, only switching to infrared black-and-white mode when it is fully dark. They can record 4K video and 4MP photos, and have a 16x digital zoom. A pair of rechargeable batteries give up to eight hours' use (£240; akasotech.com).

Billingham Galbin 10 binocular case

A decent protective optics case is a good investment. Billingham makes its bags in England, using three-layer waterproof canvas with leather trims and

brass fittings. This case has

a quick-release leather front strap for silent, single-handed access, plus a rear pocket for a notebook or phone (£183; billingham.co.uk).

Tips of the week... on cooking and storing eggs

• According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), eggs should be stored in the fridge, or in a “cool, dry place”.
• For most recipes – such as scrambled eggs, omelettes, meringues and cakes – eggs work best at room temperature, as they combine better with other ingredients.
• Michel Roux Jr keeps eggs in the fridge but takes them out ten minutes before boiling them to avoid thermal shock, which can make them crack in the water.
• To make them easier to peel, Roux plunges them straight into iced water for ten minutes after boiling. This also helps stop a grey ring appearing around the yolk.
• Lion Mark eggs are stamped with a best before date, which will be 28 days after they were laid, but the FSA says they'll be safe to eat a few days after that if cooked well. The float test – fresh eggs sink, old ones float – is not foolproof. The best way to check is to crack the egg into a bowl: you will smell it if it has gone off.

And for those who have everything...

Keep food and wine cool, even in a heatwave, with a walk-in subterranean larder. Inspired by Victorian ice houses, the Ground Fridge has the capacity of about 12 fridges – but it won't stay cold enough to safely store perishable goods that require refrigeration.

about £12,000; groundfridge.com

Where to find... cottages with wild swimming

Set in a gravel garden by a natural pool fringed with reeds, Mirana in Constantine, Cornwall, is a two-bed converted barn. There's a wood-fired hot tub and a sauna (4 nights from £1,495; uniquehomestays.com).

The Kingfisher Houseboat, one of a trio of timber cabins on a Pembrokeshire lake, has a hammock, a ladder for lake access and a canoe (2 nights from £300; coolstays.com).

Borrow a paddleboard, boat, raft or canoe at Ditchling Cabin, on a private lake in East Sussex. There's a kids' bunk, a bath and fire pit (2 nights from £1,390; airbnb.co.uk).

Stay in an adults-only geodesic dome floating above a lake at Lilypod in Devon, with wood-burning stoves, hammocks and canoes (2 nights from £440; airbnb.co.uk).

You don't need a car to get to Berrywell – it's just a 15-minute walk along the Pennine Way from Penistone station. It's a cosy larch-clad cabin (sleeps four) in a fabulous wildlife garden with a natural pool (one night from £189; airbnb.co.uk).

SOURCE: THE SUNDAY TIMES

SOURCE: POSITIVE NEWS

SOURCE: THE TIMES

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

SOURCE: FINANCIAL TIMES

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Travel

LEISURE 33

This week's dream: a lost city in the Mexican jungle

The Yucatán Peninsula is Mexico's prime tourist hotspot, but most visitors stay in the north, around the "mega-resort" of Cancún and the stretch of Caribbean coast known as the Riviera Maya. The south of the peninsula is a different world, says Martin Symington in The Times – a vast, sparsely populated region which is relatively little visited by holidaymakers. The distances involved in exploring it are considerable (the Yucatán, which stretches into Belize and Guatemala, is nearly as big as Great Britain), but so are the rewards. As you head south from Cancún, low forest and scrub give way to "deeper, darker" forest, and hidden away

among it are some "magical" places, including one particularly "stupefying" sight – the ancient Mayan city of Ichkabal.

In the north, I stayed at Belmond Maroma, "a peach of a beach-fringed hideaway", and visited the old colonial town of Valladolid, as well as the spectacular Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá – "an archaeological honeypot up there with Petra or Giza".

The ancient Mayan city of Ichkabal: "stupefying"

Ichkabal feels very different. Its biggest pyramid, at 40 metres high, is taller than Chichén Itzá's, and stands beside a "stadium-sized" central precinct surrounded by other monumental structures. All are half covered in vegetation, and set in an "impenetrable" rainforest that stretches further than the eye can see. This city reached its zenith between AD200-600, and was later abandoned and – incredibly – only rediscovered in 1994, when archaeologists working on another project "stumbled" upon it. Last year, it was opened to visitors, and yet – while I came across several jungle creatures (including a crocodile swimming in one of the city's

original reservoirs) – I saw only a handful of other tourists.

Other unmissable sights include the Lagoon of Seven Colours, a narrow, 60km-long lake. Its water is wonderfully clear – great for snorkelling – and there are some "tranquil" boutique hotels on its shores, including the Habitas Bacalar. Journey Latin America (journeylatinamerica.com) has a seven-night trip from £4,730pp.

Getting the flavour of...

The timeless charms of Tinos

A relatively quick two-hour ferry journey from Athens, Tinos is one of the more "wild and untouched" of the Cyclades, says Francesca Angelini in The Sunday Times – an "otherworldly" place with towering mountains, "frills-free" old chapels and gorgeous beaches. For a family holiday, I rented a "chic, understated" villa through The Thinking Traveller on the "sheltered" west coast, a 15-minute walk from the sandy beach of Kalivia. From there, we visited other beaches (Kolymbithres was lovely), went on some good hikes, and explored several enchanting villages. I loved "mystical" Tarampados, with its medieval, Venetian-style dovecotes ("ornate" two-storey stone structures), and Volax was wonderful, with its "bizarre" rock formations (boulders which were apparently "hurled down by Zeus in a moment of rage") – but most "spectacular" was Kardiani, a "maze" of whitewashed houses on the "precipitous" hillside above our villa.

A pretty Dutch village built on canals

Set midway between Amsterdam and Groningen in the northern Netherlands, the village of Giethoorn (pictured) is the kind of place that should be prescribed for depression, says Gavin Haines in The Daily Telegraph. With its thatched houses and "manicured" gardens, it's "almost too perfect to be real" – but what makes it particularly "idyllic" is that it's built largely around canals. Its charms are no secret: it receives about a million visitors a year (roughly a third of them from China), and the central waterway is often gridlocked. Still, one local told me he wasn't much troubled by the crowds: the village still feels peaceful thanks to the absence of cars, and most of the visitors are daytrippers who leave around 5pm. If you go, book a B&B in advance, and hire a canoe or rowing boat to explore the wetlands in the nearby Weerribben-Wieden National Park.

A cookery and craft retreat in Japan

The little Japanese mountain town of Yamanaka is known for its hot springs, traditional crafts and food culture, all explored in Water, Wood, & Wild Things, by the American writer Hannah Kirshner. For those keen to experience them first-hand, Kirshner runs a biannual four-day retreat, Foodways and Craftways, says Jessica Kozuka in DestinAsian. Guests stay at the "venerable" Hanamurasaki ryokan – an inn founded in 1902 with a rooftop onsen bath – and take part in cookery and craft workshops at Mokkei, a renovated 100-year-old house with an open kitchen. The programme also includes foraging trips, tea ceremony classes at one of the town's tea schools, and traditional pastry lessons at a fifth-generation confectionery. See mokkei-yamanaka.com and hana-mura.com.

Hotel of the week

One&Only

Moonlight Basin

Big Sky, Montana

The One&Only group's first resort in the US is in the Rocky Mountains in southwest Montana and offers excellent skiing, says Hannah Towey in Condé Nast Traveller, but it is also well worth a visit in the warmer months. Wildlife, including moose and bobcats, can often be seen on its 240 acres, which link two "vast" sections of protected wilderness. The hotel itself has an air of "quiet luxury", with 73 spacious rooms and 19 cabins; and there are three restaurants, an indoor-outdoor pool and a spa that offers both "hi-tech" and conventional treatments. Doubles from £907; oneandonlyresorts.com.

15 August 2026

THE WEEK

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34

Obituaries

Irreverent columnist and former editor of Today

Rod Liddle 1980-2026

Rod Liddle, who has died aged 66, was arguably Britain's most offensive newspaper columnist – which

was a badge he wore with pride, said The Daily Telegraph. He first came to prominence as the editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, which he did much to enliven until he was forced out in 2002 for breaking BBC impartiality rules. His offence was to have mocked, in an article in The Guardian, the "angry, ruddy-faced people" on the Countryside Alliance march. "You may have forgotten why you voted Labour in 1997," he said. "But then you catch a glimpse of the forces supporting the Countryside Alliance ... Suddenly, rather gloriously, it might be that you remember."

Liddle had been a member of the Socialist Workers Party; yet when he reinvented himself as a columnist, it was in The Spectator, The Sun and The Sunday Times that he made his mark. Funny, inventive and irreverent, he took on every liberal elite, "from the commissars of correctness in the broadcast media to the panjandrums of the race-relations industry" and the "strident advocates of transgender rights", while puncturing pomposity and self-victimhood wherever he saw it. His real loathing, however, was for the "faux-Lefites" on various boards and commissions, who let slip their contempt for the white working class – a group he felt had been "left behind by social change, bad education and modern obsessions with multiculturalism and minority rights".

His columns were "endlessly provocative", said The Times. In one, he mused that he could not have been a teacher, because he "could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids". In another, he suggested that elections should be held on a day when Muslims are prohibited by their faith from leaving the house. But Liddle was a Millwall supporter, and if some people didn't like him, he didn't care. And "plenty did": in 2018, he sold out the 2,300-seat London Palladium for a one-off in-person event.

Liddle: expelled from nursery

Yet some of us who had admired Liddle in the 1990s detested the writer he became, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. As a shambolic, tousle-haired ex-punk who'd delighted in outraging his strait-laced parents in his youth, he seemed to have decided that the easiest way to recapture that thrilling sense of transgression in the 21st century was to kick against progressive liberalism. Yet he didn't just attack the establishment; his targets were people – Muslims, trans people, the chronically ill, the marginalised. His writing remained ostensibly humorous – if people took umbrage, his editors could say it was a joke, or satire. But the self-parody and the "deep-seated humanity" ("I'm a mess, you're a mess, let's get out of this mess together") that had once made it likeable faded away. Embraced by the Right, Liddle became a peddler of "hate-for-fun".

Rod Liddle was born in 1960 and brought up in southeast London and Middlesbrough. His parents, both civil servants, were churchgoing and respectable, said The Times – yet Liddle was a natural agitator. He was expelled from nursery as a toddler for hitting another child over the head; as a "gobby" teenager, he stood for the Communist Party in a mock election at his comprehensive school, and won. His parents were appalled when he joined a punk band. After a year or two trying to make it as a musician, he got a job on a local paper, then moved to London. He worked as a researcher for the Labour Party, took a degree at the LSE and joined the BBC. It was there that he met his first wife, Rachel Royce. They had two sons before marrying in 2004. Liddle cut the honeymoon short, saying he had to get back to deal with the Hutton Inquiry. A few months later, Royce learnt that he'd actually left to see Alicia Monckton, a 22-year-old employee of The Spectator, with whom he'd been having an affair. He and Monckton had a child the following year, married in 2008, and later settled in a seaside town just outside Middlesbrough. She and his children survive him.

Record-breaking mountaineer who found fame on Netflix

Nirmal Purja 1983-2026

Nirmal "Nims" Purja, who was killed last month while climbing in Pakistan, "redefined what was physically possible at high

altitude", said The Daily Telegraph. The Nepali-British mountaineer became famous in 2019, when he scaled the world's 14 mountains rising over 8,000 metres in six months and six days – smashing the previous record, of seven years. In 2024, Purja, who cited Usain Bolt and Muhammad Ali as inspirations, did it all over again, this time without supplementary oxygen, in another record-breaking time of 29 months. The subject of a hit Netflix documentary in 2021, he won millions of followers online, and lucrative contracts from mountaineering brands. However, questions were raised about his reliance on huge support teams and helicopters to ferry him between base camps to achieve his record-breaking feats, and in 2024, major corporate sponsors dropped him after he was publicly accused of sexually harassing and assaulting two female climbers – allegations he denied.

Nirmal Purja was born in a remote mountain village in western Nepal in 1983. His father had served with the Gurkhas and his mother was a farmworker. "We came from a really poor family," he recalled. "As a kid I remember I didn't even have flip-flops."

Purja: served in Afghanistan

Like his older brothers, he followed in his father's footsteps, joining the Gurkhas aged 18. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007, where he was involved in sweeping vast areas of land for improvised explosive devices. In 2009, he became the first Gurkha to pass Selection for the elite Special Boat Service. It was while he was in the SBS that he discovered his love of high-altitude mountaineering. He trekked to Everest base camp in 2012, and in 2016 he reached the summit for the first time. In 2019, he took a photograph of a long queue snaking to the top that went viral. In the same year he rescued a Malaysian climber on Annapurna. In 2023, he paused to rescue a Nepalese army captain who'd been abandoned by his own party on the South Summit of Everest.

Purja's other achievements included being part of the team that, in 2021, made the first winter summit of K2 – one of the world's deadliest peaks, where the bodies of several climbers killed by an avalanche in 2008 still lie in a narrow gully known as the Bottleneck. "Passing bodies, you realise some things are beyond planning and skill," he said. "Sometimes it's just your day and sometimes it isn't." He was killed by an avalanche on Broad Peak, in the Karakoram range, along with nine other climbers. He is survived by his wife Suchi, and their daughter, Himani.

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

© PHIL PEACOMERS PRESS

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CITY

CITY 35

Companies in the news

...and how they were assessed

Eli Lilly: new weight-loss wonder pill hits Britain

The UK has become the first country in Europe to approve orforglipron, a new daily weight-loss pill made by US firm Eli Lilly. Sold under the name Foundayo, it becomes the second GLP-1 tablet to enter the UK market, following the launch of the Wegovy pill in June. Because it is regarded as a “treatment for life” for obesity and type 2 diabetes, Foundayo promises to address a key anxiety of GLP-1 users – that they will regain weight when they stop taking the drug, said Eleanor Hayward in The Times. Foundayo’s UK approval will up the ante in the competition between Eli Lilly and Denmark’s Novo Nordisk in the market for oral weight-loss treatments, said Cris Tolomia on Quartz. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill has first-mover advantage. But Foundayo is easier to use: it can be taken any time of the day, before or after a meal, and swallowed with any liquid; rather than on an empty stomach each morning. Investors seem to think this could give it the edge, said The Motley Fool. Shares in Eli Lilly, already up 90% in a year, jumped another 4% on the prospect of “considerable sales” in a country with a population of 60 million that will likely prove a launchpad to the wider European market.

Trump Media and Technology Group: insider fusion

There may be ructions in the White House this week, sparked by news that the US president’s baby, Trump Media & Technology, has fallen deeper into the doo-doo. The parent of Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform has racked up first-half losses of $644m, which it blames largely on the fall in bitcoin prices, reported the Financial Times. Salvation lies on two new fronts: a push into nuclear fusion via a $6bn merger with energy company TAE Technologies; and selling Wall Street firms “fast access” to Trump’s market-moving Truth Social posts for $100k a month, via its new Truth API scheme. Both are problematic. TAE has yet to generate any revenue from “commercial fusion”. No company ever has – sceptics joke it is always “two decades away”. The Truth API service, by contrast, has reportedly already pulled in at least ten big customers, said DealBook in The New York Times, most of them trading firms whose algorithms can execute trades in milliseconds. The catch is that the access could qualify as “insider trading”. “If I were the general counsel of a hedge fund, I’d still be very worried about exposure,” said law professor William Birdthistle, of the potential for legal challenges.

Accell/Raleigh: facing the chop

There’ll be plenty of sadness in cycling circles – and among Britons of a certain age – that the Dutch bicycle and e-bike maker Accell has filed for insolvency, said Matthew Lynn in The Daily Telegraph. Why? Because it owns that great British champion Raleigh, whose models such as the Grifter, the Burner, and – perhaps most famously of all – the Chopper, are fondly recalled as among “the most wished-for Christmas gifts” of the 1970s and 1980s. Having started in a Nottingham workshop in 1885, Raleigh had become the world’s largest bicycle maker by 1913 and a major employer in the East Midlands. But having been sold several times since the 1960s, the past 50 years has been “a sad tale of relentless decline” all too typical of UK manufacturing. Production here ended more than 20 years ago; now the brand faces total extinction unless someone buys the rights. Given the global market for bicycles is some $35bn, and growing, this seems all wrong.

Seven days in the Square Mile

Hopes of a swift reopening of the Strait of Hormuz faded again, driving the oil price back to nearly $90/barrel. On Wall Street, stocks jumped after several AI companies reported better growth than analysts expected and a positive inflation report. The CPI fell from 3.5% in June to 3.4% in July, suggesting the US Fed will keep rates on hold again. Still, some warned of complacency in markets, noting that Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, the Vix index, has sunk below its long-term average despite continuing tensions with Iran.

In Britain, the closely-watched REC-KPMG report on the labour market showed that full-time hiring has stabilised for the first time since Liz Truss’s 2022 premiership, following the longest contraction on record. Pay growth is back at a six-month high.

Nvidia said it had signed agreements with six of the largest finance houses on Wall Street to mobilise a $500bn package to provide capital for frontier AI labs. A shake-up at Google DeepMind saw Demis Hassabis step down from CEO to become chair of the AI unit and chief scientist of parent Alphabet, causing disquiet among London staff.

AstraZeneca denied that it was in talks with US pharma rival Bristol Myers Squibb, scotching reports of a $400bn mega-merger following investor disquiet. Peter Ruis, the boss of John Lewis’ department stores, quit after less than three years after warnings of “really tough” trading at the retail giant.

Thames Water: backlash over £1m payout to finance chief

The nation’s least-favourite utility company is in hot water again, said Holly Williams in The London Standard. Thames Water, which is “sinking” under a £20bn debt pile, battling to secure its financial future and widely loathed by its customers, has sparked further outrage by handing a delayed £1m “golden handshake” to its aptly named CFO Steve Buck, sourced from “an emergency lending facility from creditors”. Buck – formerly of Pennon, Anglian Water and Centrica – joined Thames 15 months ago to lead a financial turnaround. There’s not much sign of that: it is currently a leading candidate for emergency

Having taken legal advice, the Thames board felt it had no choice but to hand over the agreed cash, said Maxine Brigue in HR Magazine. And executive coach Natasha Wallace noted that it was probably a necessary price to secure top talent for “one

“Sinking” under a £20bn debt pile

of the hardest jobs in business” – involving “unrelenting pressure, public scrutiny” and “sleepless nights”. She’s got a point, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. However much this payout “muddles the water” of public perception, Thames badly needs competent management to fight “a rising tide of debt and faeces”.

“The Government is shocked, or pretends to be,” said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. But Labour left the door open for this when it passed the 2025 Water (Special Measures) Act. The obvious flaw in the drafting was

that the legislation only banned performance bonuses – opening the floodgates to “salary increases, allowance awards” and “retention payments”. We saw this before, during the supposed “clampdown” on bankers’ bonuses after the 2008 crash. “When you push down one area of remuneration … another tends to go up.” Fittingly, it’s called “the waterbed principle”.

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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36 CITY

Talking points

Issue of the week: taking over easyJet

The Apollo takeover has implications for budget travel and the London market

When the young Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou launched easyJet in 1995, in a bid “to democratise travel”, the no-frills airline operated just two routes, said Angharad Carrick on This is Money. Since then, it has grown into the UK’s largest airline by passenger numbers – becoming synonymous with cheap holidays across Europe and setting the pace for change in the industry. But now the orange upstart is being taken private after 26 years on the London Stock Exchange, having agreed a £5.7bn takeover by the US private equity giant Apollo, “which some analysts believe is something of a cut-price fare in itself”. The words “private equity” might spark fear among easyJet

customers, “who have seen other well-loved British brands being taken over and stripped of their assets”. Whether or not these forebodings are realised, it’s the end of an era.

Unlike its rival bidder, fellow US investment firm Castlelake, Apollo has at least obtained the royal consent of Haji-Ioannou, whose backing of the bid was vital to its success, said Ali Lyon in City AM. He described the firm as “one of the most well-resourced and experienced institutional investors in the world” and said he planned to remain an investor. But, ultimately, it was probably the price that swung the matter: Apollo’s offer is an

The end of an era for the “orange upstart”?

81% premium on the airline’s share price prior to takeover speculation. EasyJet now becomes “the first large European carrier to be held in private markets” – assuming Apollo’s formula for persuading EU regulators to nod through the deal works. It may not be the last, said Hugh Leask on CNBC. This deal could presage a flurry of interest in European budget airlines from private equity buyers, with Jet2 especially “in the crosshairs”.

Reports that easyJet will be “loaded” with £3bn in debt after the takeover are disturbing, said Dominic O’Connell in The Times. Moody’s, the credit-rating agency, has already signalled its disquiet. Still, Apollo has some experience of

airlines, said Peter Campbell in the FT: previous investments include Aeroméxico and Sun Country Airlines, which it listed on Nasdaq in 2021. It has already signalled its intention to take easyJet “upmarket”, with more “business-focused product features on key routes”. That might suit rivals like Ryanair, but it won’t please cash-conscious travellers. Indeed, this deal could “blow the budget-airline market wide open”, said Matthew Lynn in The Daily Telegraph – as well as fuelling more soul-searching in the City about leading British companies being taken private on the cheap. “It may not be long before we need a FTSE 50, or even a FTSE 30, to reflect how few significant companies are left.”

Chinese IPOs: what’s in the pipeline?

Cut-price Shein

After four years of roaming the world looking for a market host, the Chinese online fast-fashion retailer Shein is finally set to float in Hong Kong, said Reuters – at a vastly reduced price. The Singapore-based company is targeting a valuation of between

$30bn-$40bn, “a dramatic reset from earlier private fundraising rounds” which gave it an approximate $100bn valuation. The once all-conquering cheap clothing emporium is facing tougher competition, tighter regulatory scrutiny, and “headwinds” selling into US and European markets – it recently reported a $99m quarterly loss. The open question, though, is whether tech-preoccupied local investors will conclude they have bigger fish to fry.

Humanoid sensation

A case in point, said William Sandlund in the FT, is Unitree Robotics – a Chinese robot maker whose IPO has been “5,500 times oversubscribed by retail investors”, according to a filing ahead of its listing in Shanghai, illustrating the “huge enthusiasm for tech stocks in the country”. And not least for “embodied” or “physical” AI – an emerging world in which humanoid robots “increasingly learn by interacting

Moonshot AI’s CEO Yang Zhilin

with people and objects in the physical world”, said DealBook in The New York Times. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang calls it “the next frontier”, and Unitree is at the vanguard. The proposed debut price, valuing it at roughly $9bn, is already looking conservative.

Shooting the Moon

Still, by far the most anticipated debut, said the South China Morning Post, is that of Moonshot AI, the Beijing-based startup whose recently released Kimi K3 “open weights” model is challenging the capabilities of top Anthropic and OpenAI models. Moonshot’s Yang Zhilin hopes to raise capital valuing it at $50bn, ahead of a Hong Kong IPO possibly by the end of the year. If it achieves anything like $50bn, said Alexis Dufresne in AI Weekly, it will become “the benchmark” that resets prices “across the Chinese frontier-AI cohort”. Goldman Sachs and China International Capital Corporation (CICC) are reportedly advising. The latter is already “anchoring” China’s “AI-hardware IPO wave” – having masterminded the recent blockbuster debuts of data centre parts supplier Zhongji and memory-chip maker CXMT. Indeed, CICC has “muscled aside rivals”, said the FT. In Asia, it’s the bank to watch.

Gold: what next?

Make gold digital As part of its quest “to modernise London’s financial markets”, the Financial Conduct Authority is exploring “tokenised versions of gold”, said Philip Stafford in the FT. The idea is to represent gold bars as tokens on an open digital ledger, with the owner retaining rights to the physical asset. The big benefit for London – which dominates the global bullion market with about 70% of trading volumes – is that tokenised gold could be used “to back other trades as an alternative to cash or government bonds”.

Greasing the wheels The travails of London’s stock exchange rightly grab attention. But the City’s “real strength” lies in markets such as swaps, forex and metals, which all “need collateral to grease their wheels”. Tokenised gold could prove popular. In the two years since HSBC launched a product in Hong Kong, more than $2.2bn has been traded in some 276,000 transactions.

Shining again? The more pressing question for investors, said John Stepek on Bloomberg, is whether gold is regaining its poise. After “meme-stock levels of momentum” drove it to an all-time high approaching $5,600/oz in January, the price slumped to $3,950 – but has recovered to around $4,300. Gold is at the mercy of geopolitics and economic data. Yet the backdrop for a monetarily “neutral” financial asset remains “pretty supportive”, given spiralling government debt.

THE WEEK

15 August 2026

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Commentators

CITY 37

Pitfalls facing the “resilient” UK economy

David Smith

The Times

The hidden leverage of AI hyperscalers

Robin Wigglesworth

Financial Times

Britain’s wildfires are here to stay

Lara Williams

Bloomberg

The rise of the 1am job interview

Kate Taylor

Wired

Barring a nasty surprise, the next set of quarterly growth figures – while unlikely to match the brisk 0.6% jump in the first quarter – are expected to be decent enough, says David Smith. It’s a measure of the resilience of the UK economy. When the Strait of Hormuz closed, the situation “looked pretty desperate”. Maintaining growth despite that energy shock has been “quite an achievement” – underscored by relatively upbeat recruitment and employment surveys. “We should not, though, count our chickens before they are hatched.” Among potential dangers are the impact of the drought on economic activity, the possibility of further shocks from the Iran war, and the looming October Budget. “The good news is that Budget speculation isn’t yet as frenzied as it was a year ago”, but it will doubtless “gather pace” – risking a damaging freeze on investment, recruitment and spending decisions. Among the many priorities of the new administration, one of the most crucial ones that Chancellor John Healey must tackle is tempering the uncertainty that might prompt an economic knock-back.

Market optimists are quick to scoff at worries about the tech industry’s “hyperactive” investments in data centres, says Robin Wigglesworth. As they point out, big AI hyperscalers such as Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet have strong “core businesses” generating “a ton of cash”, with relatively little debt and strong credit ratings. Even if the data centres fail to produce the expected financial returns, runs the argument, they’re well covered. “It’s a fair point.” Despite their recent bond issuance splurge, the hyperscalers have an average net leverage ratio of just 0.5 times – compared with 0.8 times for the tech sector as a whole and 1.8 times for non-financial US companies in general. What’s potentially concerning, though, is the “increasingly creative ways” they’re finding to raise cash while “limiting the optical impact on their balance sheets” – ruses such as joint ventures with investment managers. When Goldman Sachs’ analysts went through the fine print, they “totted up a massive $1.5trn of lease commitments” – of which about $1trn did not appear on the hyperscalers’ financial statements. It rams home the point that “those capex returns do kinda need to materialise”.

A couple of decades ago, it wasn’t unusual for Britain to go a year – or several – without a significant wildfire, says Lara Williams. Yet in the weeks up to 30 July, some 716 cases of varying severity were recorded across the UK, ranging from heath and moorland fires to blazes closer to urban areas. Data shows that the UK’s “cumulative weekly severity rating” – a measure of how hard it would be to control a fire if it broke out – “is now the worst on record”. There’s no secret as to why this is happening – it’s down to Britain’s warming climate. But we are hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with it. Neither the UK military, nor fire and rescue units, have aerial fire-fighting capabilities: “the helicopters capable of dumping water over flames are provided by private contractors” – with clear disadvantages. When a “megafire” broke out on Dava Moor in Scotland in 2025, the aircraft needed to douse it were “already engaged in a filming contract”. More action to adapt to our newly fire-prone country is vital. “The nights may be drawing in, but next summer will come around quickly.”

Technology has completely reshaped the process of searching for a job, says Kate Taylor. As automated video and AI become a bigger part of the recruitment process, so too do late-night interviews. Ribbon – a company that makes voice-AI recruitment software – notes that 24% of its interviews now take place between 10pm and 2am local time. For manufacturing clients, that figure jumps to 35%. Some jobseekers – typically parents and those already working shifts – report that they find the flexibility useful. But answering automated questions deep into the night can only add to the dehumanising experience of the modern job search – all the more so when it results in an algorithm-induced rejection. “One of the major stressors for applicants” is the lack of transparency on how the footage is assessed. Will AI reject them outright because they failed to say a certain buzzword? One candidate likens the process to screaming “into the void”. In a recent survey, the hiring platform Greenhouse found that 38% of US candidates had chosen to withdraw from a hiring process, rather than be interviewed by AI. A backlash seems to be under way.

City profile

Nik Storonsky

The billionaire founder of Revolut is in line for an Elon Musk-style mega-award for the “explosive growth of Britain’s biggest neobank”, said Marine Saint in The Observer. If the fintech Nik Storonsky, 42, co-founded with roughly £300,000 in 2015 hits a $500bn valuation, he will receive a payout of £57bn and a 40% share award. He holds a 29% stake. The privately held company is worth around £115bn and has some 75 million customers globally. The Russian-born dynamo’s expansion plans got a major boost this week after Revolut was awarded a full French banking licence – “a big step-up from its present EU authorisation from Lithuania”, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Like British regulators before them, European watchdogs have been dragging their feet owing to concerns about the bank’s “risk and compliance controls”, said the FT. What may have swung the authorities in Paris is a pledge to open its European HQ there.

Perhaps a more immediate distraction for Storonsky is an embarrassing row over a £300m superyacht. He’s being sued by shipbroker Cecil Wright & Partners for “going behind its back” to avoid paying commission on the vessel, which features a “cryotherapy chamber” and “25-foot glass-bottomed infinity pool”, said Angharad Carrick on This is Money. Given his net worth, Storonsky, who insists the claim is “without merit”, might view the £15m fee as a gnat’s bite. But it’s not ideal PR – flagging up, as it does, the question first asked on Wall Street in 1940: “Where are the customers’ yachts?”

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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38

Marketplace

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THE WEEK INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS GUIDE A/W26

The next chapter starts here

The Autumn/Winter edition of The Week Independent Schools Guide, published on 4 September, brings together our expert take on all you need to know about education today. Alongside regular features, such as Best of the Best Senior Schools, reflections from a leading light in education in A Head Writes, and Top Reads for Children and Teens, this issue explores some of the key questions shaping school life for parents, pupils and school leaders, helping families better understand the education landscape and showcasing the very best of UK schools.

To discuss advertising opportunities, contact

Jenny Grealish, Account Director

jenny.grealish@futurenet.com

For editorial enquiries, contact

Amanda Constance, Editor

amanda.constance@futurenet.com

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

To advertise here please email classified@theweek.co.uk

or contact Lily Phillips at lily.phillips@futurenet.com

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Shares

CITY 39

Who's tipping what

The week's best shares

BAE Systems

Investors' Chronicle

Shares have retreated since the Iran war started, yet orders are up by a quarter as the Government commits to boost defence spending to nearly £300bn. Buybacks up 10%, the interim dividend by 11%. Buy. £20.56.

Breedon Group

Investors' Chronicle

The weak UK housebuilding sector has “not been kind” to this building materials group. Yet diversification into the US and Ireland has boosted revenue growth. Looks cheap, and yields nearly 5%. Buy. 320p.

Elementis

Investors' Chronicle

This niche chemicals firm, producing coatings and compounds for personal care products, has seen revenues rise by 4.7%, profits by 16.4% and margins have climbed to 23%. Debt is down, with cost savings on track. Buy. 178p.

Mony Group

The Times

The MoneySuperMarket owner helps customers save money on insurance, bills and banks – and is now teaming with Octopus Group and Vanguard to offer investment funds. Set for upswing. Yields 6.4%. Buy. 198.3p.

Reckitt Benckiser Group

The Times

The Dettol, Gaviscon and Finish owner is focusing on faster-growing, higher-margin core brands while cutting costs. Solid finances, brand loyalty and a strong competitive position. Yields 4%. Buy. £53.42.

Zotefoams

Citywire

Zotefoams sells its premium foams to markets from automotive and aerospace, to sports kit and footwear. Expansion is on track thanks to “sensible capital allocation and cost discipline”, says Berenberg. Target 590p. Buy. 434p.

Directors' dealings

SRT Marine Systems

An expanded offering has

boosted the maritime

surveillance systems

specialist's revenues by 49%,

and the pipeline to around

£1.34bn. Profits have doubled.

Non-exec Oliver Plunkett

approves: spending £148,475

to take his holding to 14.63%.

...and some to hold, avoid or sell

Admiral Group

Citywire

The UK motor insurance group's shares have hit an all-time high, despite challenging conditions. Still, Peel Hunt believes they're “fully valued”. Profits are down 18%, with the interim dividend slashed by 39%. Target £26.20. Sell. £38.98.

Mobico Group

Investors' Chronicle

The transport operator is struggling with “legacy liabilities” – stemming from its now-offloaded US school bus arm and a German rail contract. UK bus and coach trading is weak. Sell. 29.5p.

Next

Citywire

The retail giant remains a “rare bright light” following impressive European trading and raised profit forecasts, says Jefferies. Boosted by pent-up demand in the Middle East and firepower to spend on marketing. Hold. £149.

Taylor Wimpey

Investors' Chronicle

The housebuilder has cut its returns commitment to “preserve balance-sheet strength” and “retain financial flexibility”. Nonetheless, well-run – and well-placed for the medium term due to the quality landbank. Hold. 80p.

TheWorks

Investors' Chronicle

Once a discounter, this “refreshed” and profitable high-street retailer, with 500-plus stores, makes a virtue of its “screen-free” books, toys and craft supplies. 8.8% sales growth, and cash is building. Hold. 76.9p.

Vodafone Group

The Times

The telecoms giant has restructured and cut debt, while riding a buoyant African market. Shares have gained almost 40% in a year. But fast-changing tech, and fierce competition are worrying. Avoid. 119.3p.

Form guide

Shares tipped 12 weeks ago

Best tip

Amphenol Corporation

Morningstar

up 36.55% to $167.23

Worst tip

Marston's

Investors' Chronicle

up 9.15% to 51.3p

Market view

“I continue to believe

it is possible we are

near a major top, and

possibly a 1987-type fall.”

Big Short Investor Michael

Burry. Quoted on CNBC

Market summary

Key numbers for investors

	11 Aug 2026	Week before	Change (%)
FTSE 100	10844.19	10879.38	-0.32%
FTSE All-share UK	5847.90	5855.17	-0.12%
Dow Jones	53891.88	54148.52	-0.47%
NASDAQ	26519.50	26425.64	0.36%
Nikkei 225	66970.22	63957.53	4.71%
Hang Seng	25652.82	25852.92	-0.77%
Gold	4381.01	4087.92	7.17%
Brent Crude Oil	88.77	79.30	11.94%
DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100)	3.00%	3.02%
UK 10-year gilts yield	4.96	4.90
US 10-year Treasuries	4.69	4.62
UK ECONOMIC DATA
Latest CPI (yoy)	2.6% (Jun)	2.8% (May)
Latest RPI (yoy)	3.0% (Jun)	3.1% (May)
Lloyds house price (yoy)	0.1% (Jul)	0.6% (Jun)
£1 STERLING: $1.351	€1.171	¥215.329	Bitcoin $63,588.10

Best and worst performing shares

WEEK'S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS

RISES	Price	% change
Endeavour Mining	4183.00	+15.04
Fresello	2948.00	+12.13
Diageo	1766.00	+7.98
St James's Place	1177.00	+6.57
Metlen Energy & Metals	€43.45	+5.62

FALLS

Prudential	1012.00	-7.53
3i Group	2742.00	-4.99
Coca-Cola HBC AG	4614.00	-4.39
Brit. American Tobacco	4202.00	-4.33
Imperial Brands	2628.00	-3.95

FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER

Harworth Group	180.00	+33.04
Oxford Biomedica	487.00	-13.96

Source: FT (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 11 Aug (pm)

Following the Footsie

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

SOURCE: INVESTORS' CHRONICLE

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40

The long read

My meeting with the Taliban commander I once fought

As a US marine, Thomas Gibbons-Neff served in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban. This year, he returned one last time to speak to a former enemy, in search of answers

I've had a hand in killing around six people. Maybe seven. I don't know if one man bled out on the side of the road or was taken to a doctor. I think about him often. The killings occurred in the winter and spring of early 2010, during one of the largest operations of the war in Afghanistan: the battle of Marja. I was the 22-year-old leader of a scout sniper team of seven marines and one navy corpsman. It is a strange thing, having killed people in a conflict that spanned 20 years and was ultimately lost. The sum of such an intense expenditure of human lives and trauma left Afghanistan much as it was in 2001, before any American boots touched the ground.

We were directed to kill the enemy, but also to "win hearts and minds", to earn the population's trust and isolate the Taliban. Trying to build goodwill while engaging in gunfights beside people's homes was profoundly confusing. The killing wasn't detached; it felt deeply personal. Patrols required a constant assessment of friend or foe, and long hours staring through high-powered optics trying to determine the intent and mannerisms of our enemies. Rarely did we see them with a rifle in their hands. Killing fell on our own instincts and an ever replenishing set of fears. Should we shoot this man? Should we not? What if we don't? Will our friends die because of our hesitation?

We also had a twisted culture in which killing earned you respect, as if shooting Afghans was the ultimate proof that you were competent. So we killed people. I killed people. These decisions to pull the trigger were the final steps of our part in a strategy that was doomed before I even deployed.

The Taliban, with their exclusion of women from public life and violence towards ethnic minorities, fractured Afghan society. During its 20-year occupation, the United States often used this as a justification to prolong the war, even as it rarely addressed its strategic and moral failures or the pain and loss it was causing so many Afghans. My journalism career – which began after I left the Marine Corps – revolved around trying to understand why this bloody cycle continued, and what role I played in a conflict that was far from over. The more I learnt, the more my contribution to this mess left me with a sense of shame.

Covering war also meant sustained proximity to violence, victims and trauma, and from time to time the public dishonesty that all but inevitably accompanies conflict. I had lived through enough in the Marine Corps. I was already past my fill of that. I resigned

Mullah Abdul Rahim Gulab had commanded Taliban units in Helmand

from my job, exhausted. But in May, with a little over two weeks remaining at The New York Times before returning to school to become an English teacher, I landed in Afghanistan. I had come to speak with the people I once fought against: the Taliban.

My thinking was that even if the Pentagon would not undertake any significant reflection for these recent decades of war, I could hold myself accountable for my part in a half-baked strategy that left tens of thousands of Afghans and Americans dead. I brought souvenirs from a gift shop near my home in Rhode Island, which I would present to a few Taliban officials whom I have known for nearly a half decade now. Hearts and minds, after all, though this time as a guest not an occupier.

Ultimately, I wanted to talk to Mullah Abdul Rahim Gulab, a Taliban commander whom I met by chance in 2021, just months after Kabul fell to the Taliban. But we had also fought against one another in February 2010 in southern Afghanistan. I knew he would have a version of the battle in Marja that was different from mine. Maybe he had stories with his own heroes and dead friends that I could respect, ones he also couldn't stop thinking about. Maybe I could feel bad for him and not just feel bad for living while my friends died.

"Trying to build goodwill while engaging in gunfights beside people's homes was deeply confusing. The killing felt personal"

When I landed in Kabul in May, a Taliban deputy minister at the ministry of information and culture named Muhajer Farahi wanted to talk to me about my request to Mr Gulab. We had not met before. But sitting across from me in his office, Mr Farahi told me his reasons for fighting the US were simple: he wanted the Americans out of his home. He spoke slowly and quietly, and avoided eye contact. His English was good. He made clear that his time in Farah Province in southwestern Afghanistan during the war, or jihad, as the Taliban refer to their 20-year military campaign, was difficult. "We were on the right side," he said. "We were fighting for our faith."

I apologised for his dead friends and the innocent people killed in the war. He looked at me and thought for a moment before reminding me that I was a soldier, a cog in a machine that decided to invade his country and stay. It was as close as I would get to a pardon. He wanted to discuss other things. Mostly he was curious about the number of Americans he had killed, and was still perplexed that, even though he watched roadside bombs detonate under our armoured vehicles, our casualty numbers from the Pentagon were relatively low. He assumed the United States

When I landed in Kabul in May, a Taliban deputy minister at the ministry of information and culture named Muhajer Farahi wanted to talk to me about my

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

© JIM HAYTER/DEAN/TEV/2026

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The long read

41

lied about its death tolls. I explained the complicated web of emergency care that was a quick helicopter flight away. He didn't seem convinced. Instead he said something that most Talibs have echoed when discussing my time as a marine: don't try to invade again. I assured him that the US had moved on, but he was unconvinced. "You haven't learnt," he said. "Look at Iran and Gaza – you are fighting for the Israelis. You don't care about human rights." As I walked into the blinding light of downtown Kabul, I felt a strange sense of relief. I had been lectured, yes, but on the edges it felt as if there was some acknowledgment of our humanity. That felt like enough, for now. It was time to talk to Mr Gulab.

Gibbons-Neff serving in Afghanistan in 2010

When I interviewed Mr Gulab in 2021, I didn't disclose that I had been a marine. I questioned him as a reporter about his fighting days. He confirmed things I knew: how he and his peers would drop their weapons and greet us as friends on the streets, and that they relied on children to track our footprints to our makeshift outposts. These had been hard facts for me to confront back in 2010. His tactics had formed a puzzle I navigated on every patrol so that I could survive the day. Some of my friends didn't.

When I first met Mr Gulab, I walked to a mud brick wall in Marja as a journalist. As a marine a decade before, I had shot a young man in the head in this exact spot. I remembered the last glimpse of his face before the crack of my bolt-action rifle. My brain didn't compute that I had killed him until later, when someone told me they had found his body dragged behind a corner with his weapon. Mr Gulab and I are roughly the same age, in our late 30s. He joined the Taliban because two of his brothers were killed fighting. One of them is his WhatsApp profile picture. I joined the marines because my dad was a Vietnam veteran who rarely spoke about the war, and because I was a short kid who grew up in a nice town and went to a nice public high school and wanted to prove myself.

In May, when I reached Mr Gulab again, this time by phone, I told him the truth about my background: I wasn't just a journalist, I had fought in Marja. He said he had realised that when we first met, given the specificity of my questions. He wondered what I wanted now: "What's the point in talking again?" Mr Gulab had won his war, and closed that chapter long before I did. Now he was preparing to fight another conflict, this time against Pakistan. He led a large army unit from a base that is still known as Camp Dwyer – named after a British soldier killed in 2006 – where I had flown from in 2010 to fight him and his mujahideen troops.

Our conference call began with pleasantries before his reticence lifted, and he was willing to talk about the beginning of the Marja operation. I was curious about his side of our shared experiences, including the fate of a Taliban sniper whom he would have known, or at least heard about. That sniper had shot two of my marines, including my assistant team leader, on the first day of the battle. It was dusk. We were on the roof of a two-storey building, the only structure that high for miles. I remember what sounded like a baseball bat hitting uncooked meat. I looked up to see my friend Matt screaming. He had been shot in the arm. A week or so later we drove that sniper into an orchard, where a drone strike presumably killed him. But 16 years later, I still wanted to know for sure. Mr Gulab started to speak but was cut off by his minder, who said curtly that sharing such details was illegal.

Instead, Mr Gulab had questions of his own, involving that same sniper. He said he was nearby when my teammates were hit and

remembered reports that two "foreigners" had been shot on that roof and fallen off. "Did they die?" he asked. I explained that both had survived their wounds but that Matt died in a motorcycle accident back home a little over a year later.

"Why do many American soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and later returned to their country commit suicide?" Mr Gulab asked. "What is the reason?" It was a question that haunts many of us. I tried to explain how we carried the crushing weight of our own shattered expectations: we had done something we were supposed to be proud of. Instead, what we got from our politicians and generals were evasions and lies. Our commanders could never explain how all the violence we committed

and the losses we suffered made anyone safer in the US. We were left to figure everything out on our own while they landed lucrative jobs at defence companies and collected big fees on speaking circuits. For some people, it was too much to handle.

Mr Gulab's years after the war had been nothing like that, he said. "Our mujahideen are the opposite, because of the jihad they carried out and because of the friends they lost, they are very happy, because our jihad had a clear goal." While the Taliban had won the war, winning the peace had brought its own difficulties: Afghanistan was in economic crisis and isolated from the world. "Regarding your apology," he said, "I should say that at that time our jihad was for the sake of Allah, and we were not worried about being killed or wounded. We are also not upset about

our friends who were killed or wounded, because all of us wished to be martyred or injured on the path of jihad. Since the conditions at that time were wartime conditions, civilians were often killed or wounded."

"I remember what sounded like a baseball bat hitting uncooked meat. I looked up to see my friend Matt screaming"

I wished that I, too, could accept the deaths of my friends and the results of my own actions instead of inhabiting a fog of anger and bitterness over wasted youth. Mr Gulab let me know that such sentiments existed in Afghanistan, too. "Regarding the mujahideen who were killed by your side, I do not know whether they or their families would forgive you," Mr Gulab said. "Those civilians may not forgive the foreign forces, but for me personally, I have my own authority and I have forgiven you."

I first set foot in Afghanistan as a 20-year-old lance corporal in 2008. The Taliban were shadows in a tree line then, characters that appeared in my nightmares as I tried to stay alive. In August 2021, I watched them shake hands with a squad of US marines as the Afghan army evaporated, Kabul fell and my war was finally, fully lost. Now my one-time enemy generously offered a kind of coda to a line I wrote in my journal on that first deployment 18 years ago: "It's hard to explain this place and I feel it's going to take the rest of my life to figure out what happened here."

Boarding my flight back to the US, a pervasive sadness lingered in the corners of my mind. I was tired, as if litigating my war again had somehow restarted it. Mr Gulab and I were, at one point in our lives, two people, barely men at the time, fighting for vastly different reasons. Maybe it was enough that I saw him now more, in some twisted way, as a friend than my enemy. Some days later in Rhode Island, as I walked my dog on a muggy New England night, my phone vibrated. Mr Gulab had texted me in Pashto: "Have you arrived at your home?" he asked. I said I had. "It's good to hear that you arrived safely."

A longer version of this article appeared in The New York Times © 2026 The New York Times Company

© BRYAN BENTON

15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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42

The last word

On leak patrol with Severn Trent

Severn Trent Water hasn't had a hosepipe ban in 30 years. What, asks Matt Rudd, is the secret of its success?

On graduating with a degree in music technology, Jonny Bevan didn't expect to become a drone pilot, but life, like water, can take strange turns and so here he is, eight years later, in a field in Shropshire with a remote control in his hands. The drone flying above us is carrying a thermal camera. From 70 metres up, it can detect slight changes in temperature on the ground. "If you've got a sewage leak, it will be warmer," he explains. "If you've got water coming out, it will be cooler." He can also deploy a normalised difference vegetation index camera which maps crop growth. If you have a long-term leak, "the crop growth will start to change", he says.

Bevan is part of the innovations team at Severn Trent, the UK's second-largest water company. He uses cage drones that can fly through pipes listening for changes in pressure, and he and his team are rolling out remotely operated "drones in a box", which will eventually be cleared to launch, Thunderbirds-style, in remote areas. Bevan is meeting me in this field because I asked his company a question: why hasn't it had a hosepipe ban for 30 years? At the prospect of a good news water company story, Severn Trent has pulled out the big drones.

Hosepipe bans are in place across much of the UK; 26 million people not allowed to water their lawn or fill their paddling pool. Which is not the end of the world – most of us can live without a hot tub in a drought – but are the water companies doing their bit when it comes to fixing leaks? As one infuriated Times reader put it, "I'm in the Affinity Water area and water has been pouring out the end of my road for nearly three months. Meanwhile, we have a hosepipe ban. How is that fair?" For the eight million people who happen to live in Severn Trent's jurisdiction, stretching from the Bristol Channel to the Humber, it's still hosepipes a-go-go. Why? Is it just because it rains more up north and out west?

"We've had 1% of the expected rainfall this month," says Doug Clarke, Severn Trent's water resources lead. "The difference is that our aquifers are sandstone whereas, in the south, they're mainly chalk. Sandstone is much more resilient to drought." Luck of the geographical draw is only part of it, though. Clarke and his colleague Steph Cawley, director of customer operations, are keen to emphasise what it takes to keep the taps flowing. On a country lane north of Shrewsbury, they show me a hole. Two hundred metres further along the road, they show me another hole. To me and, I'm sure, local residents, it looks like normal, irritating roadworks, but they're upgrading a 8.5km section of pipe.

Until very recently, the whole road would have been dug up. Today, they're using "no-dig" or "trenchless" technology – they're mole-ing from one hole to another, which means the disruption will last for weeks, not months. "Our biggest investment is in replacing old pipes like these," says Cawley. "In this five-year period, we're replacing 1,400 kilometres." Which sounds like

Jonny Bevan (right): a pilot in the utility's drone team

a lot until you realise they have 48,000 kilometres of pipes across the network.

In reality, it's very much a Forth Bridge situation. There will always be leaks that need plugging, but technology is helping. Once a leak is reported – either by drone, microphone, pressure monitor or irate resident – a team is dispatched "immediately". The section is isolated, and a water tanker is plugged in down range to keep the taps on. Why, I wonder, couldn't South East Water send in the tankers when Tunbridge Wells ran dry? No comment from Severn Trent.

The leak is also tackled with new technology. They first trialled something called the Aquapea, a Blu Tack-like substance which gets sucked into the hole and seals it. "That had limited success," says Cawley, "so now we use a product which you inject into the pipe. The pressure means it finds the leak, it seals it and then you suck the product straight back out again." This product is now used in half of

the repair jobs and has an 80% success rate.

"Once a leak is reported, by either drone, pressure monitor or irate resident, a team is dispatched immediately. The section is isolated"

Demands change constantly with the weather (we use 20% more water when it's hot) and population growth. Clarke, who is responsible for water resource management, is confident the regions he oversees won't need

a hosepipe ban this year. He also has a 60-year resource plan, because whatever pressure there is on the network now is unlikely to ease. "Our lives now are very different," he says when I ask him to compare this summer to the great drought of 1976. "Our homes are very different. In the 1970s, there was one bathroom, you often shared a bath... you wouldn't necessarily be bathing every day. Nowadays, generally homes have one or two bathrooms. Showers are more common and people tend to have more of them. Every home has a washing machine and dishwasher. Our lifestyles have changed but, with climate change, we need to adapt."

He welcomes the Government's introduction of mandatory water labelling that will grade home devices "a bit like the energy label". He says leaky loos are a huge problem and that, hosepipe ban or not, we should all let our lawns die in a heatwave. "Last summer, mine was brown and crispy. By spring, it was as luscious as it's ever been. The weeds died and the grass has grown better."

Last month, Severn Trent, which is increasing consumer bills by 47% over five years, escaped a fine from Ofwat after "serious failings in its duties" to deal with sewage spills. To the ire of clean water campaigners, Ofwat found that it had taken "genuine accountability" to fix the problems. "Last year, we reduced spills by 41%," says Cawley. Which is a significant number, but why did they wait so long to achieve that? "We shouldn't have," she says. "But we didn't get a fine like other companies because we responded quickly and we're going to keep going."

A longer version of this article appeared in The Sunday Times © Times Media Limited 2026

THE WEEK 15 August 2026

© IMS COOPERATIVE TIMES/NEWS LICENSING

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Crossword

43

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1529

Two Connell Guides and two Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 24 August. Send it to The Week Crossword 1529, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Jeff Pearce

This week's winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com).

ACROSS

1 Dressing down for these dives? (5,5) 6 Cease work by the way (4) 10 Porter, say, carries very soft fruit (5) 11 Alarm created by fault in redeveloped site (9) 12 Degrees of precision a snappy dresser may have? (8) 13 Wasp-like creature found in hive – spawning (5) 15 Girl heard to put on a little weight – such as 8? (7) 17 For example a column in The Week? (7) 19 Briefly leave pets? (4,3) 21 Loud speaker with gun used at uprising (7) 22 Initially criticise Yahoo's power (5) 24 Hot day when composer goes round church (8) 27 Slender cardinal you texted in a gallery (9) 28 Quiet bohemian get-together (5) 29 Old tyrant found back in Florence (4) 30 Characters follow donkey entering Church for meals (10)

DOWN

1 Return of Friends is a hit (4) 2 Ape pie cooked with claret (9) 3 Epic about English Bishop, perhaps (5) 4 Element started a fire I smell outside (7) 5 Person serving coffee in Zanzibar is Taiwanese (7) 7 Hears what rugby fans hope to see (5) 8 Retiree pad possibly (4-1-5) 9 Ship sailing to Crete with little velocity (8) 14 Stem holes in this line of bloomers (5,5) 16 Settling down batsman Joe takes second when batting with Glamorgan's opener (8) 18 See a building here? (9) 20 Upset drunk with small amount on a tortilla (7) 21 Tools to dig small holes (7) 23 Take power from wizard's soft fur (5) 25 Skip exercise in vehicle (5) 26 Sound purchases that are extras (4)

Clue of the week: Dishonest scheme interrupted by resistance – get out fast! (5) Quick Cryptic by Hurley, The Times

Name

Address

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Clue of the week answer:

Solution to Crossword 1527

ACROSS: 6 Hyena 7 Agar-agar 10 Theatre 11 Spaniel 12 Ontario 13 Smother 14 Achievement 19 Coal lit 21 So there 23 Emeriti 25 Clapper 26 Penelope 27 Image

DOWN: 1 Fenestra 2 Batter 3 Malevolent 4 Dais 5 Radish 6 Hot dog 8 Abalone 9 Alarm 13 Seersucker 15 Hotline 16 Thespian 17 Aches 18 Dear me 20 Axemen 22 Tragic 24 Iron

Clue of the week: Great opera houses going under? The opposite (4) Solution: ATOP (a hidden answer ["houses"] in "greAT OPera")

The winner of 1527 is Graeme Bemrose-Smith from Bovey Tracey

The Week is available from RNIB Newsagent for the benefit of blind and partially sighted readers. 0303-123 9999, rnib.org.uk/newsagent

	5		2	3	4		6
7	3						8
5				1			3
1			5	4	3		9
8				7			1
4	1						7
	9		1	2	5		3

Sudoku 1,071 (easy)
Fill in all the squares so that each row, column and each of the 3x3 squares contains all the digits from 1 to 9
Solution to Sudoku 1,070
2	4	3	7	1	5	6
7	6	8	2	9	3	4
1	9	5	8	4	6	2
8	7	9	3	2	4	5
3	2	4	6	5	1	7
5	1	6	9	8	7	3
4	5	2	1	6	9	8
6	3	1	5	7	8	9
9	8	7	4	3	2	1

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15 August 2026 THE WEEK

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制度与权力批判深度研判：The Week UK (2026-08-15)

▌ 本日全报思想与文化深思雷达 (Intellectual & Cultural Significance Radar)

在系统通盘梳理本期报纸所涉及的国际政治、社会与文化报道后，以下 3 个具体事件在制度伦理与权力运作层面最值得学者进一步深思：

1. 英国监狱提前释放计划与公众愤怒的冲突 [F1_6, F1_7, F1_10, F1_11]

   • 事件简述：为缓解男性监狱容量运行在98%的严重过度拥挤问题，英国政府计划从10月起提前释放约5,000名囚犯。然而，由于该计划最初未排除杀害警察的严重罪犯，引发剧烈抗议，导致首相安迪·伯纳姆在度假归来后被迫调整政策 [F1_7, F1_10]。
   • 思想文化深思切入点：探讨“惩罚的正义性”与“制度的实用主义”之间的断裂。当法律的报应功能（Retributive Justice）被行政空间的物理极限（监狱容量）所限制时，权力如何通过临时性的“排除清单”来修补合法性危机。

2. 霍尔木兹海峡僵局与地缘政治的“信誉损耗” [F2_14, F2_17, F2_18]

   • 事件简述：伊朗提出包括取消制裁、撤军及支付赔偿在内的苛刻条件才重新开放海峡 [F2_14 🔍]。而特朗普在威胁“沉重打击”与寻求协议之间反复波动，导致海峡基本关闭，且被认为在威胁后倾向于退缩 [F2_17, F2_18]。
   • 思想文化深思切入点：分析“表演性权力”在现代地缘政治中的失效。当权力的威慑不再基于可预测的制度逻辑，而基于不可预测的个人风格时，这种治理模式如何反向地赋予对手以战略空间。

3. 自然恢复力与人类干预的共生 [F3_20, F3_21]

   • 事件简述：大堡礁在经历大规模白化后展现出卓越的恢复能力 [F3_20 🔍]；而一只极度濒危的肯普氏棱皮龟在人类长达两年半的护理及跨国协作运输下成功返回墨西哥湾 [F3_21, F3_22]。
   • 思想文化深思切入点：反思“人类中心主义”在生态修复中的角色。在自然自愈（大堡礁）与精准人工干预（海龟救援）之间，探讨人类在应对气候危机时应采取的“辅助者”而非“主宰者”的伦理定位。

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▌ 精选核心专题深度思想论证 (In-Depth Dialectical Monograph)

专题一：空间极限与正义幻象：英国监狱危机中的制度实用主义批判

英国当前的监狱危机 [F1_11 🔍] 并非简单的管理失误，而是一场深刻的制度性撕裂。现实困境在于，英格兰和威尔士的男性监狱容量运行在约98%的极限水平，剩余空间不足2,000个 [F1_11 🔍]。当物理空间的匮乏直接威胁到刑事司法系统的运转（可能在11月前耗尽空间）时，政府被迫采取提前释放5,000名囚犯的实用主义方案 [F1_7, F1_11]。然而，这种基于空间计算的行政决定，瞬间撞上了公众对于“报应正义”的伦理底线——尤其是当杀害警察的凶手可能获益时 [F1_7 🔍]。

从话语策略来看，首相安迪·伯纳姆的应对呈现出一种典型的政策摇摆。他最初通过暂停计划回应愤怒，随后在审查后重启并排除部分罪犯，最后在度假归来后面对抗议再次表示将寻找其他方法以确保严重罪犯留在监狱中 [F1_7, F1_10]。这种反复揭示了权力在面对“物理极限”与“情感正义”双重压力时的失能。政府试图通过建立一个“排除清单”（如强奸犯、严重性犯罪者）来掩盖制度的系统性崩溃，将一个结构性的空间危机转化为一个关于“谁该被排除”的个案讨论。

这种困境揭示了法律执行在后现代治理逻辑中的异化：法律的权威不再仅仅依赖于判决书的公正，而依赖于执行的物理可能性。当刑期计算与物理空间的匮乏发生冲突，正义被简化为一种“容量管理”。这种“空间实用主义”导致了一个危险的结论：罪犯的释放时间在某种程度上不再仅取决于其罪行的严重程度，而取决于监狱的实时空床率。这标志着法律从一种基于原则的规范，转向了一种基于资源分配的物流管理。

专题二：威慑的解构与重建：霍尔木兹海峡僵局中的权力逻辑

霍尔木兹海峡的僵局 [F2_14 🔍] 提供了一个关于“权力信誉”的典型样本。伊朗提出的重新开放条件——包括取消海上封锁、撤军、支付战争赔偿及释放资产——在外交层面显得极其苛刻 [F2_14 🔍]。然而，这种强硬态势的背后，是对美国威慑力下降的精准计算。正如《华尔街日报》所指出的，伊朗可能观察到特朗普在威胁后退缩的模式，并注意到美国远程导弹库存可能耗尽以及军方首脑寻求退出战争的信号 [F2_18 🔍]。

在此场景中，权力的运作方式发生了从“制度威慑”向“个人博弈”的转移。特朗普采取的是一种基于不可预测性的策略：在“大谈”协议前景与威胁“沉重打击”之间快速切换 [F2_17 🔍]。但在地缘政治的长期博弈中，这种“非理性”的表演性权力如果缺乏实质性的执行支撑，反而会产生反向效果。当对手意识到威胁仅是谈判筹码而非行动预告时，威慑的边际效用递减，导致海峡依然“基本关闭” [F2_17 🔍]。

这种僵局揭示了现代地缘政治中的一个悖论：在追求“快速交易”和“个人影响力”的治理风格下，传统的国家信誉（Credibility）被削弱了。对于伊朗而言，其要求不仅是经济或军事的，更是对美国战略耐心的测试。而对于美国而言，在11月中期选举的政治压力下，其目标已从最初的“政权更迭”降级为简单的“海峡重新开放” [F2_18 🔍]。这证明了当权力的目标在短期政治周期中发生漂移时，其在国际场域中的战略议价能力将不可避免地被对手利用。

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▌ 面向学者的开放性思想追问与研究路标 (Open Horizons for Scholarly Inquiry)

1. 【关于“资源决定论”的法治研究】：当公共基础设施（如监狱 [F1_11 🔍]）的物理容量成为决定法律执行标准的最高准则时，我们是否正在进入一个“资源决定论”的法治时代？如何构建一套在资源匮乏时依然能维持伦理底线的动态正义模型？
2. 【关于“表演性权力”的有效性研究】：在国际关系中，不可预测的个人领导风格在短期内可能带来谈判惊喜，但长期如何影响国家信誉的累积？是否存在一种量化模型可以衡量“威慑信誉”的损耗速度 [F2_18 🔍]？
3. 【关于“生态恢复力”的伦理研究】：对比大堡礁的自然恢复 [F3_20 🔍] 与海龟的人工救援 [F3_21 🔍]，在生物多样性保护中，人类干预的边界应如何界定？在何种条件下，“不干预”比“精准干预”更具伦理正当性？

理性与情感辩证深度研判：The Week UK (2026-08-15)

▌ 本日全报生活世界痛感与情感政治深思雷达 (Lifeworld & Affective Significance Radar)

在系统通盘梳理本期报纸所涉及的所有报道后，以下 3 个具体事件在生活世界痛感、情感政治动员与制度理性冲突层面最值得学者进一步深思：

1. 【监狱提前释放计划与哈珀警官之死】 [F1_6, F1_7, F1_11]

   • 事件简述：英国政府为缓解监狱 98% 的极高占用率，计划从 10 月起提前释放约 5,000 名囚犯，但因涉及杀害警察安德鲁·哈珀（Andrew Harper）的严重罪犯可能获益而引发剧烈抗议。
   • 情感政治与伦理深思切入点：技术官僚式的“容量管理”理性与公众对残忍暴力（被拖行一英里多死亡）的肉身痛感之间的剧烈撕裂。这揭示了制度在面对“统计学上的空间危机”与“伦理学上的正义诉求”时的失能。

2. 【霍尔木兹海峡僵局与地缘博弈】 [F2_14, F2_17, F2_18]

   • 事件简述：伊朗公布了重新开放海峡的苛刻要求（包括取消制裁、撤军、支付赔偿等），而特朗普则在“大谈”协议与威胁“沉重打击”之间循环，海峡基本处于关闭状态。
   • 情感政治与伦理深思切入点：国家战略理性被高度个人化的政治信誉博弈所驱动。冲突演变为一种针对特定政治人物（特朗普）信誉的消耗战，且双方在“炸弹”与“谈判”的循环模式中陷入僵局。

3. 【自然恢复力与物种救赎的微观叙事】 [F3_20, F3_21]

   • 事件简述：大堡礁在经历大规模白化后展现出卓越的恢复能力；一只极度濒危的肯普氏棱皮龟在经过两年半的护理后，通过复杂的跨国运输返回墨西哥湾。
   • 情感政治与伦理深思切入点：在宏观气候危机与地缘冲突的压抑叙事中，这种微观的“恢复”与“归还”提供了情感上的补偿机制，探讨人类在面对不可逆的生态破坏时，如何通过个体化的救赎行动重建与自然的伦理连接。

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▌ 精选核心专题理性与情感辩证论证 (The Dialectic of Logos and Pathos Monograph)

专题一：容量理性的冷漠与肉身正义的愤怒：英国监狱危机中的制度异化

在英国当前的监狱危机中，我们观察到一种典型的“技术官僚理性（Institutional Logos）”与“生活世界痛感（Lifeworld Pathos）”的暴力碰撞。从制度端看，英格兰和威尔士的男性监狱容量运行在约 98% 的极限水平，剩余空间不足 2,000 个 [F1_11 🔍]。在这种量化模型下，监狱管理被简化为一个单纯的“存储空间”问题。政府的提前释放计划 [F1_7 🔍] 本质上是一次为了防止刑事司法系统在 11 月前彻底阻塞而进行的“压力释放”操作，其逻辑是系统止损。

然而，这种去情感化的管理逻辑在遭遇哈珀警官被残忍杀害（被拖在车后行驶一英里多）的具体事实时，瞬间崩塌 [F1_11 🔍]。对于公众而言，哈珀警官的死亡不是一个统计数字，而是一次极具具象痛感的肉身摧毁。当制度理性试图通过“服满二分之一刑期”这种法律程序假设来解决空间危机时，它实际上是在用冰冷的算术抹除受害者及其家属的创伤体验。

这种“话语温度差”——一边是政府关于“释放容量”的技术术语，一边是公众关于“残忍杀戮”的道德愤怒——导致了严重的政治反噬。首相安迪·伯纳姆在度假归来后不得不撤回决定 [F1_10 🔍]，证明了在极端的情感动员面前，纯粹的量化理性无法获得合法性。更深层的辩证在于，这种愤怒揭示了公众对分配正义的诉求：惩罚的力度必须与罪行的残酷程度成正比，而非取决于监狱墙壁的物理尺寸。

专题二：地缘博弈的个人化转向：霍尔木兹海峡僵局中的信誉解构

霍尔木兹海峡的僵局揭示了当代国际政治中一种危险的趋势：国家战略理性（Logos）被高度个人化的政治博弈（Pathos）所俘获。在传统的现实主义外交模型中，海峡的关闭与开放应基于安全协议或制裁解除等理性筹码。然而，目前的博弈逻辑已高度指向特朗普个人的政治信誉 [F2_18 🔍]。

在这种辩证关系中，伊朗采取了一种精巧的压力策略。一方面，它通过公布详尽且苛刻的要求清单（包括释放冻结资产、支付战争赔偿等） [F2_14 🔍]，将谈判门槛提高到美国难以在短期内接受的程度；另一方面，它利用特朗普在威胁与妥协之间循环的性格特征 [F2_17 🔍]，通过维持海峡“基本关闭”的状态来解构美国的全球信誉。

这种冲突的残酷之处在于，它将全球贸易与油价的稳定性 [F2_18 🔍] 这一宏观生存危机，变成了政治实体之间关于“谁更强硬”的自尊心较量。伊朗并不急于取得突破，而是通过维持僵局，在 11 月中期选举前给特朗普制造政治压力 [F2_18 🔍]。当外交手段被简化为“大谈”与“威胁”的循环 [F2_17 🔍]，国际关系的理性沟通领域被极化的敌意所取代。这种从“国家利益”到“个人信誉”的转向，使得冲突失去了可预测的理性边界，全球供应链在一种近乎荒诞的个人恩怨博弈中陷入瘫痪。

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▌ 面向学者的伦理与社会心理开放性追问与研究路标 (Open Horizons for Ethical & Sociological Inquiry)

1. 【关于“量化治理”与“肉身正义”的冲突研究】：当技术官僚体系（如监狱容量管理）将人类生存状态简化为统计指标时，如何构建一套能够兼容“具体痛感”与“系统效率”的伦理补偿机制，以防止制度理性演变为制度冷漠？
2. 【关于地缘政治中“个人化领导力”对制度信誉的侵蚀研究】：以霍尔木兹海峡僵局为样本，研究当国家战略被绑定在特定领导人的个人性格与信誉上时，如何导致外交沟通的失效以及冲突不可预测性的增加？
3. 【关于生态恢复叙事在危机时代的情感功能研究】：分析大堡礁恢复 [F3_20 🔍] 与濒危海龟归还 [F3_21 🔍] 等微观正面叙事，如何在宏观的全球危机感中起到心理缓冲作用，以及这种“局部希望”是否会掩盖系统性的生态危机？