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31 October, 2023

Boris Johnson lacked the skills to deal with the pandemic effectively, one of his former top aides told the Covid inquiry this morning. Lee Cain said the then PM would often delay making key decisions and change his mind on the big issues. Dominic Cummings is giving evidence this afternoon. The World Health Organisation has warned of an imminent “public health catastrophe” in Gaza, as Israel’s ground invasion continues. Labour MP Andy McDonald has been suspended for using the phrase “between the river and the sea” – widely considered an implicit call for the destruction of Israel – at a pro-Palestinian rally. Celebrities have already set a high bar for Halloween costumes this year, says Variety. Top outfits so far include singer Chlöe Bailey’s Game of Thrones homage; Hailey Bieber aping Carmen Electra’s turn in Scary Movie; Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly as characters from Kill Bill; and Lizzo as the late Tina Turner.  

An Iranian soldier during a military drill last year. Anadolu Agency/Getty

Is the world in a 1914 moment?

Western policymakers are increasingly worried we’re in a 1914 moment, says Gideon Rachman in the FT – that the Israel-Hamas conflict could quickly escalate into a much wider war, pulling in Iran, the US and Saudi Arabia. How might this play out? We had one indication last week, when American forces bombed Iran-backed militias in Syria, in retaliation for attacks on US bases in Syria and Iraq. If those attacks continue, “the next US response will be even fiercer”. Another danger is that Hezbollah, the Tehran-aligned militant group in Lebanon, steps up its attacks on Israel, prompting the Israelis to retaliate. That could trigger Iran to send its own troops to support Hezbollah, and Israel to strike back not just in Lebanon but in Iran itself.

Where things could get really dicey is if Tehran decides to “finally act on its occasional threats to close the Strait of Hormuz”, the sea passage through which much of the world’s oil flows. That would “send the global economy into a tailspin”, and almost certainly lead the US – and perhaps Saudi Arabia – to reopen the strait by force. Iran proxies could then hit back at US targets across the region, in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Syria and Iraq. All the players are alive to these risks, of course – the crisis has already led to an “unprecedented conversation” between the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran. No one wants a “catastrophic war”. But then the same was true in 1914. “Let us hope this time is different.”

To mark Halloween, Atlas Obscura has announced the winners of its annual Spooky Snaps Photo Contest. They include eerie images of a rusty barber’s chair in an old Philadelphia prison cell; a giant, mouthless bust of US President Chester A Arthur in Virginia; a graveyard statue in a Paris cemetery; a wheelchair at an abandoned psychiatric centre in New York; and the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. See the full list here.

Fourteen years after George W Bush’s presidency ended, says Axios, he is still younger, at 77, than the frontrunners for the next election: Joe Biden is 80, Donald Trump is also 77, but a month older than Bush.

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Standing out in the “saturated market of celebrity tequila” isn’t easy, says Danielle Cohen in The Cut. So you have to admire Matthew McConaughey, who recently launched Pantalones Organic Tequila with his wife Camila. Pantalones is Spanish for trousers, and in the first promo the couple ride motorbikes through fields of agave, entirely naked from the waist down. They claim they’re trying to inject some “fun” into tequila. But watching them zoom through the “dusty, dry desert” wearing nothing but a shirt, I was just “overcome with concerns about chafing”.

Greta Thunberg: the young are being “let down by older generations”. Christopher Furlong/Getty

Don’t put all the blame on Baby Boomers

On the vexed question of who’s to blame for climate change, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph, many Gen Zs – those born between the late 1990s and early 2010s – have never been in any doubt. It’s those “selfish, entitled, ignorant, gas-guzzling Baby Boomers”. In January 2020, for example, Greta Thunberg co-signed a “scathing” public statement declaring that the young were being “let down by older generations”. The pop star Billie Eilish went one further, declaring that “old people” had to start listening to the young “so that we don’t all die”.

Turns out they were wrong. In a “fascinating” new poll by YouGov, young people claimed to be the most worried about the issue – but it was older folk who said they were doing more about it. Almost 90% of over-65s said they recycled “as much as possible”, for example, compared with only half of 18- to 24-year-olds. The old were also more likely to save water, turn down the heating, buy locally sourced food, buy energy-efficient appliances and cut down on the number of flights they take. “Greta’s generation” are giving up meat in greater numbers, but the old seem to be doing most of the heavy lifting. Now, sure, young folk may be in “such deep despair” about climate change that some of them have given up trying to tackle the problem. But there is another possible explanation. They may care more about being seen to have the “right” opinion than actually doing something about it. “A type of behaviour that older people like to call ‘virtue-signalling’.”

Is that a duppie or a plat-eye?

Americans have all sorts of names for ghosts, says Mental Floss. In the Pacific Northwest, you might encounter a “skookum”; in the south, a “bugaboo” or a “catawampus”. There are “duppies” in Louisiana, “swogons” in Maine, and “plat-eyes” in South Carolina. Some of the ghoulish names are more specific: a ghost that lives in a mine is a “tommyknocker”; an imaginary creature that always hides behind an object a “hide-behind”. And if you’re ever in Alabama, steer clear of anyone who might be a “hot steam”, described in To Kill a Mockingbird as “somebody who can’t get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads”.

Range Rovers have become “virtually impossible to insure” in London, says The Daily Telegraph. The top-end SUVs are Britain’s most stolen vehicles – three times more likely to be pinched than a Mercedes-Benz, the second-most pilfered marque. For a 35-year-old woman with six years of no claims trying to cover a Range Rover Velar R-Dynamic in the capital, the average quote on insurance site Quotegoat is £22,515. For the same driver in Sussex, it’s £1,978.

It’s Princess Leonor, heir to the Spanish throne, who turns 18 today. Her birthday will be marked by a formal ceremony at parliament in Madrid, and then a (presumably less boring) party at the Royal Palace. The infanta has been kept out of the limelight – she went to school in a remote castle in Wales – but there is already talk in Spain of “Leonormania”. Earlier this year, there were rumours she was going out with Spanish footballer Gavi. That turned out to be nonsense, says the BBC, but it highlighted the appetite for the princess to be a part of pop culture. ¡Ay dios mio! 

“Knowledge isn’t power until it is applied.”

American writer Dale Carnegie

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