Convenience Big Store: What really keeps our leaders up at night

9 May, 2023

In the headlines

Pharmacies in England will be allowed to prescribe antibiotics and antivirals for sore throats, earache and other common illnesses, as part of a plan to free up nearly 30,000 GP appointments a day. Patients will also be able to book physiotherapy sessions without having to see their family doctor first. Vladimir Putin has said the world is at a "decisive turning point" in remarks at a Victory Day parade in Moscow this morning. The event, commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany, came after Russia launched its biggest drone attack yet on Ukraine, on Sunday night. The official Coronation portraits have been released by Buckingham Palace (below). Zoom in on the Queen's dress, says Valentine Low in The Times, and you'll see embroidered golden dogs near the hem – "a tribute to her rescue Jack Russells, Beth and Bluebell".

Hugo Burnand

Comment

A deported migrant hanging a cross on the US-Mexico border wall. Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty

What really keeps our leaders up at night

The diplomats who craft Western foreign policies might be preoccupied with Russia and China, says Gideon Rachman in the FT, but what their political masters are most worried about is immigration. As one Biden staffer puts it: "If we lose the next election, it'll be over the southern border not Ukraine." US officials are bracing for a surge this week as Title 42 – a pandemic-era policy allowing authorities to swiftly expel unwanted arrivals – finally expires. As many as 13,000 would-be migrants are expected to cross from Mexico every day from now on, double the current number. In Europe, almost 40,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean already this year, and those numbers will only rise with the calmer summer seas. In Britain, a promise to "stop the boats" is one of the government's five main pledges.

The problem for political leaders is that for all the pressure to "do something", there is a shortage of realistic solutions. The right talks up walls and deportations; the left mutters vaguely about economic development and "safe and legal routes" for legitimate asylum seekers. In practice, none of it works, so governments of all stripes end up quietly paying off buffer countries like Mexico and Turkey to act as "unofficial holding pens". Not only does that hand enormous leverage to distasteful figures like Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it also just displaces the problem. A real solution will include countries all along migration routes, and involve a delicate, boring combination of diplomacy, law enforcement and "targeted development". "Walls make better headlines, but worse policy."

Art

Among the many sights of Japan, some require you "to look down when you walk", says My Modern Met. Since 1980, the country has decorated its manhole covers in a bid to encourage local tourism. Scrap metal is melted into a circle and meticulously painted by hand, with designs featuring everything from Mount Fuji to Pokémon characters. See more of the colourful coverings here.

Inside politics

Keir Starmer's claim that last week's local election results put his party on course for a thumping election win are total nonsense, says William Hague in The Times. And I speak "from my own electoral experience". Analysts put Labour's lead at about 7% on a national basis, which certainly sounds impressive. But when I was Tory leader in 2000, we won the local elections with an 8% lead over Tony Blair's Labour. "You might recall that Blair did not have much difficulty beating me in the general election the following year."

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Life

Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty

There's one photograph from the coronation that "blows almost every other arresting image of the Coronation out of the water", says Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph. It's of the Princess of Wales arriving at Westminster Abbey, giving a look that is both "stately and unwavering" – a look that confirms her transformation from "Waity Katie" to "perfect Princess". How does this "daughter of two party planners from Berkshire" get it so right? It's not just that she follows the royal mantra: never complain, never explain. It's that no one has the faintest clue what she's thinking: what makes her happy or sad, what she really thinks about Prince Harry. "Who else in public life can we say that about?" In our emotionally incontinent world, it's a truly winning trait.

Comment

Blair in 1997: knew what he wanted. Jeff Overs/BBC/Getty

The Tories have failed to reshape the establishment

An "often overlooked" failure of the Conservative Party, says Bagehot in The Economist, is how little they have shaped the country's institutions. "It is not for want of trying." Dominic Cummings promised a "hard rain" on civil service mandarins, only to be turfed out 18 months later. Liz Truss tried to challenge Treasury orthodoxy and "had a staring contest with the Bank of England". We all know how that went. David Cameron pledged a "bonfire of the quangos", the independent bodies controlling everything from water regulation to charities. Instead, with the creation of NHS England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, quangos are "more powerful than ever". Brexit was supposed to yield a "leaner, more efficient British state", but the UK government has effectively just "copied and pasted" EU law. "European red tape has been replaced by British red tape".

"The Tory party has no excuses." New Labour managed to "fundamentally alter" the way the country is run in no time at all, passing the Human Rights Act, making the Bank of England independent, and pushing through devolution to Scotland and Wales. Tony Blair's government also replaced many of the "patrician Tories" who filled the ranks of the establishment with a more liberal and diverse bunch – people who, in further evidence of the Conservatives' failures, are still in place today. The difference is, quite simply, one of vision. "New Labour knew how they wanted Britain to work." The Conservatives have no idea.

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Gone viral

TikTok creator @TanaraDoubleChocolate has carved out a quirky niche, says Eater: narrating other people's terrible cooking videos. Among the most disturbing concoctions are a DIY microwave lasagne made with rice, ketchup and mayonnaise; macaroni cheese mixed together – in a sink – with bags and bags of grated cheese; and a terrifying-looking burger face, with an egg yolk for its eyes and mouth. She typically begins or ends her videos enthusing: "Everybody's so creative." Watch her in action here.

On the money

If you ever want investment advice, you could do worse than asking ChatGPT, says the FT. Analysts at the comparison website Finder asked the AI chatbot to create a theoretical fund of more than 30 company stocks, based on a range of investing principles taken from leading money managers. Eight weeks in, the AI's portfolio has risen a very healthy 4.9%. Over the same period, the 10 most popular funds on UK platform Interactive Investor have suffered an average loss of 0.8%.

Snapshot

Snapshot answer

It's Mark Zuckerberg on his way to winning gold and silver medals at his first Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament, in Redwood City, California. The 38-year-old Facebook founder got into the sport during the pandemic, and now competes with a team called Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu. He's not the only celebrity fan of the martial art, says The Guardian: Ashton Kutcher took it up a decade ago and has a brown belt; Jason Statham has a purple belt; and Tom Hardy has won competitions in Wolverhampton and Milton Keynes.

Quoted

"Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years."