How often does spring bring a cold snap?

Out of service

Conservative MPs criticise the proposed appointment of Sue Gray as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. It is not unknown, however, for civil servants to switch to political careers, including two prime ministers of recent times.

– Edward Heath began his career in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, having come joint top in the civil service entrance exams in his year.

– Jim Callaghan did not intend a career as a civil servant, but on joining the Royal Navy during the second world war he was found to have tuberculosis, and for a while was seconded to work at the Admiralty in Whitehall, where his duties included writing a guide to the Japanese for the benefit of British servicemen who might come into contact with them. He later saw active service.

Fare’s fare

The government’s former food tsar, Henry Dimbleby, claimed that Britain is suffering much more severe shortages of fresh food and vegetables thanks to a ‘weird supermarket culture’ where shops fix long-term price contracts with suppliers. But the advantage of those contracts is that it brings down prices for consumers. The price of a lettuce across Europe (when available):

Cold comfort

The arrival of March brought the lowest temperatures of the year so far. How often does spring fail to arrive?

– The end of February has often brought surprisingly low temperatures, not least during the ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018, when minus 14.2˚C was recorded at Faversham, Kent.

– However, only once in the past 70 years has the average temperature in southern England for March been lower than in any of the preceding winter months. That was in 1975, when the mean daily maximum temperature at Heathrow was 8.4˚C,