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Halfway points Rishi Sunak told us we would have an election in the second half of the year, and we will have one on 4 July. When, exactly, is the halfway point of 2024? – There are 366 days in 2024, so we will be halfway through after 183 of them. That brings us to
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The twelve symmetrically placed unclued entries NATURAL, MAIL, MONASTIC, STANDING, PECK, LOGICAL, BATTING, APPLE-PIE, OPEN, EVICTION, BANKERS and SIDE can precede the word ORDER, and the title alluded to an ‘A to Z’. Thus unclued entries had to be entered in alphabetical order. First prize Seonaid Chapman, Brampton, Cumberland Runners-up Peter Lawrence, Durham; Julie Sanders,
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Home Parliament was dissolved, leaving no MPs until the general election on 4 July. With hours to go, Diane Abbott had the Labour whip restored to her, and Lucy Allan MP was suspended from the Conservative party for endorsing the Reform UK candidate for Telford. Among bills that were lost was one prohibiting the sale of
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Has Keir Starmer promised anything so far, during this general election, that will make anyone’s life significantly better? The clearest pledge is to impose VAT on independent schools and it’s hard to see how this benefits anyone. Many of the smaller schools will have to close and others will be forced to cut bursaries. The
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Crime without borders How many nations are signed up to the International Criminal Court? – 124 signed the Rome Statute in 1998 and ratified it. – 31 have signed it but never ratified it (includes Iran, Thailand, Ukraine). – 2 (Philippines, Burundi) ratified it but have subsequently withdrawn. – 4 signed the statute, never ratified
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Free the C of E Sir: Patrick Kidd’s article on the shortcomings of today’s Church of England maintains the importance of the ‘volunteers in the pews’ who bind the church together (‘Miracle workers’, 18 May). He warns that these people ‘can so easily run away’. This is exactly what happened to the Church of Scotland in 1843
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The unclued Across lights are makes of AUSTIN (in yellow) cars and the unclued Down lights are MORRIS (in red) cars, hence A and M in the title. First prize Chris Taylor, Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire Runners-up Sara MacIntosh, Darlington; Stephen Smith, Messing, Essex
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Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘I want to make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology’ for a ‘decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life’, as described in the report by Sir Brian Langstaff from the Infected Blood Inquiry, which found that successive governments and the NHS had let patients catch HIV
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As soon as Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons that ‘there is going to be a general election in the second half of this year’, nervous Tory MPs spotted a problem: that could mean 4 July, which the Prime Minister has now announced will be the election date. Calling an early election is an
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Ironing is her favourite task. The rhythm and the steam transport her to an outer state more vivid than a dream – a place of creased and crumpled hills, a wet and heavy land through which a burning body moves, directed by her hand. Each stroke a stride, the rugged earth dissolves into a plain
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The Turner works were RAIN STEAM AND SPEED (5,44) and THE SLAVE SHIP (35), the Ruskin works MODERN PAINTERS (16,9) and UNTO THIS LAST (18) First prize Geran Jones, Bromley Runners-up Nigel Finlay, Thames Ditton, Surrey; Michael Debenham, Shrewsbury
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Soft left Sir: I read with a certain wry amusement in Yascha Mounk’s piece that ‘activists’ occupying Columbia were demanding the university administrators should supply them with food and water (‘Preach first’, 11 May). How times have changed. In winter 1976 I was the president of the student body at Edinburgh University. A group of
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Royal welcomes The Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited Nigeria last week. When was the last genuine royal tour of that country? – The late Queen made a 20-day visit in 1956, four years before Nigeria’s independence. She went for three days in 2003 when she opened the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.– The then
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Home The parliamentary Labour party shook itself uneasily after Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, crossed the floor of the Commons and joined it, because she found the Conservatives too left wing. Monty Panesar, the former England cricketer, left George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain a week after being announced as a parliamentary candidate. Some
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Rishi Sunak’s big speech this week was easily lampooned. Having accused Keir Starmer of ‘doomsterism’, the Prime Minister warned that Britain’s most dangerous years lay ahead, and talked of the threat from ‘colluding authoritarian states’. Less attention was paid to the part of his speech about artificial intelligence, which was in fact genuinely optimistic. As