The Spectator

The unclued lights each contain E as their only vowel four times. Down solutions at 4, 5 and 36 include three Es and those at 6, 10 and 38 include two Es. First prize Alison Howard, Tunbridge Wells Runners-up A.C.R.

Home The government said that the armed forces had to move to ‘warfighting readiness’ and accepted the 62 recommendations of the Strategic Defence Review headed by the former defence secretary and head of Nato, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. But the funding of the plans remained in doubt as the government insisted that a rise in defence spending to3 per cent by 2034 remained an ‘aspiration’; yet Nato was expected at this month’s summit to insist on a level of 3.5 per cent. The government committed £15 billion to its nuclear warhead programme; £1.5 billion to build six new munitions factories; an extra £1.5 billion for repairs to military housing; and the building of up to 12 conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines.

Britain without blasphemy laws is a surprisingly recent development. Blasphemy was abolished as a common law offence in England and Wales only in 2008 and in Scotland in 2021. But that was the final burial of a law dead for much longer. The last execution for the crime was in 1697; the last imprisonment in 1921; and the last successful trial in 1977 – Mary Whitehouse’s prosecution of Gay News for publishing a poem about a centurion’s rape of Christ’s corpse. Even if 11 local councils banned Monty Python’s Life of Brian two years later, the trend since has been towards trusting that the Almighty is big enough to fend for himself. Yet this week the clock seemed to have been turned back to around ad 650.

Meet Nick. He is 30 years old, has a good job and lives in London. He keeps himself to himself. He isn’t political. At least he never used to be. And yet the struggle of Nick has become the struggle of our age. For Nick, the social contract has broken down. Nick embodies a generation for whom achieving the same life quality as their parents is a distant dream  After he has paid his taxes, student loan and the rent for his Zone 4 shoebox, Nick’s take-home pay is meagre. He knows where his money goes: on the benefits, social housing and remittances of one Karim, 25, an aspiring grime artist; and on Simon and Linda, 70, a retired couple spending the fruits of their final-salary pensions and property portfolio on cruises.

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced that ‘more pensioners’ would qualify for winter fuel payments, but did not say how many or when. Nigel Farage of Reform said he would scrap net zero to fund things like abolishing the two-child benefit cap and reversing the winter fuel cut in full. Millions of public-sector workers such as doctors and teachers were offered rises of between 3.6 and 4.5 per cent. From July, typical household energy costs will fall by £129 a year, still higher than a year earlier. South Western Railway was renationalised. Thames Water was fined £122.7 million by Ofwat for breaching rules on sewage and shareholder dividends. Devon fishermen complained of Mediterranean octopuses eating crabs in their pots.

Triplets related to 38 WELLINGTON were 4A, 13 and 26 (WW2 bombers): 11, 27 and 32 (boots) and 1D, 12 and 31 (New Zealand cities).

As one might expect from a 103-year-old organisation, the BBC has a very high opinion of itself. Outside Broadcasting House stands a statue of George Orwell. Inscribed next to it is a quotation by him: ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ A noble sentiment, and a more flattering testament to the corporation than Orwell’s description of it after working there during the second world war: ‘Something halfway between a girl’s school and a lunatic asylum.’ In his growing outspokenness, the football pundit Gary Lineker might have thought that he was channelling Orwell.

Home Sir Keir Starmer was joined by EU representatives in London to celebrate new agreements with the bloc. EU access to British fishing grounds would now be in place until 2038, but it would be easier to export fish from Britain. The government said agreements on food exports and energy trade would benefit Britain by £8.9 billion a year by 2040 – 0.3 per cent of GDP. The government emphasised a defence and security pact and gave a lunch aboard the frigate HMS Sutherland. Use of e-gates by British travellers would in future be decided by each EU state. A youth mobility scheme transmogrified into a youth experience scheme and remained to be agreed. Richard Tice of Reform UK said: ‘It’s a huge betrayal; it’s surrender on steroids.

Tall order Two naval cadets were killed and 19 injured when a Mexican sail training vessel, the Cuauhtemoc, crashed into Brooklyn Bridge. How many fully-rigged sailing vessels are there in the world? — Sail Training International lists 383 such ships which have taken part in races and regattas in recent years. — The oldest still in use, Constitution, was built in 1797. It is moored in Boston as a museum ship but still undertakes voyages. — The Australian navy trains sailors on the STS Young Endeavour, a gift from the UK government to mark the 200th anniversary of European settlement in 1988. Other countries which still train naval recruits on tall ships include India, Poland, Germany and Spain. China launched its first naval training tall ship, the Po Lang, last year.