Letters
Doom and gloom Sir: The depressing article by Tom Woodman (‘You must be kidding’, 16 October) confirms my growing fears…
Barometer
Drinks at the palace The Queen was reported to have given up regular drinking. What do we know about her…
Portrait of the week
Home Sir David Amess, aged 69, the Conservative MP for Southend West, was stabbed to death while taking a constituency…
Portrait of the week
Home In an extraordinary wrangle between government departments, the Treasury accused Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, of ‘making things up’…
Letters
Gasbags Sir: Seb Kennedy tells us that, like Covid, our looming energy crisis came from China (‘Power grab’, 9 October).…
The wrong premise
Coronavirus may have fallen out of the news cycle but the threat of the virus has certainly not passed. Britain…
Barometer
Wrong place, wrong time The name of the village of Nelson, north of Cardiff, was described as ‘problematic’ in an…
To 2525: Prime Times
The [5 Down] MILESTONE puzzle number 2525 is the product of PRIME numbers 101 TIMES 5 TIMES 5, equivalently the…
A binary choice
It’s a strange reflection of our times that with so much else at stake, the leaders of both main parties…
Portrait of the week
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said he did not think Britain was in a crisis; he wanted it to…
Letters
How to stay safe Sir: Mary Wakefield is correct to highlight the opprobrium heaped on anyone who suggests sensible safety…
Barometer
Whole-life sentences How many prisoners are serving whole-life sentences? — There are currently 74 prisoners in prison with whole-life tariffs;…
To 2524: Spelean II
The quotation is ‘I DO WISH THOU WERT A [dog] THAT I MIGHT LOVE THEE SOMETHING’. The honest servant is…
Barometer
Scummy idea Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner called Tories ‘scum’ in a speech to activists at her party’s conference. The…
Solution to 2523: Monstrous regiment
The unclued Across lights can be preceded by MISS and the unclued Down lights. MRS 2/15D is the pair. First…
Portrait of the week
Home The crisis of the week was a shortage of fuel at garages. ‘There is no need for people to…
Letters
Parish problems Sir: Emma Thompson draws attention to a serious problem in the Church of England (‘Power to the parish’,…
Lights, camera, traction
There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind…
The BBC is being left behind in blockbuster Britain
There’s a great revival under way inthe British TV and film industry,but it’s not the BBC that’s behind it.Netflix is…
Step on the gas
Britain is caught in an energy crisis of the government’s own making. It is true that gas prices have spiked…
Barometer
Seeds of change The Chelsea Flower Show opened in autumn for the first time, delayed thanks to the pandemic. The…
Portrait of the week
Home To prevent a shortage of meat, which relies on carbon dioxide in its packaging, the government gave millions of…
Letters
Driving force Sir: As a long-distance UK lorry driver I am very aware of the issues raised by Rodney Pittam…
Solution to 2522: A trifle
Unclued lights were synonyms of NOTHING. ‘A trifle’ is one definition of nothing given in Chambers. First prize James Knox,…
An immigration amnesty
Many feared mass unemployment as a fallout from Covid-19. Instead, we have ended up with the opposite problem: a labour…
