In the headlines

Wes Streeting appears to be holding back on his predicted resignation. Allies of the health secretary claim he “has the numbers” to mount a formal leadership challenge against Keir Starmer but add that “things have shifted” since yesterday. Angela Rayner says she has been “cleared” after paying £40,000 to settle an HMRC investigation into her tax affairs, paving the way for a potential leadership bid. Xi Jinping told Donald Trump the “Taiwan question” was critical to US-China relations and could lead to “conflict” if badly managed as the two began their high-stakes summit in Beijing. The US president described a two-hour meeting this morning as “great”, while Xi called for their countries to be “partners, not rivals”. The most famous self-portrait of JMW Turner, which inspired his depiction on the £20 note, is not a self-portrait at all, according to the artist’s biographer. James Hamilton says the c.1799 painting, which was likely bundled up with hundreds of Turner’s works after he died, doesn’t match the English Romantic painter’s style, and is more likely by his contemporary John Opie.

Tate Britain

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Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty

Kemi Badenoch’s possible path to No 10

Reputable bookies are offering 13/2 on the Conservatives winning the next general election. Those odds “should tempt a punter”, says Janan Ganesh in the FT. Yes, “voting intention” polls show voters skirting the Tory party “as though it were made of uranium”, but three years away from an actual election, there are better predictors of the eventual result. The Conservatives are the most trusted party on the economy, the most important issue for voters, above even immigration. And a fast-improving Kemi Badenoch is already more popular than Nigel Farage. It’s too-little remarked how extraordinary this is. “A party so recently jeered from office should not even be competitive.”

Another reason to think the Tories are underpriced is that Labour will fall even further. If Keir Starmer goes, Britain faces three years with an unelected prime minister, enacting policies to the left of the government’s 2024 mandate. “It would take a Dante to put into words how hated these people are going to be.” The problem isn’t Starmer but Labour itself, which exists to spend public money, and will still be screaming “austerity” when the bailiffs come banging on the door. Winning back “moderate, tax-fatigued voters” shouldn’t be tricky. Beating Nigel Farage will be harder. But the Reform leader has an under-discussed liability: in 2029, he will be 65, which would make him the oldest incoming prime minister since Winston Churchill’s return to power in 1951. And Britain is nearing a “1979 moment”, when long-delayed reform – taxes and borrowing are both vastly too high – finally becomes inevitable. Farage is too much the crowd-pleaser to slash welfare; Labour wouldn’t obey a leader who tried. Voters may look at Badenoch and conclude: “There is no alternative.”

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Art

Regular gallery visits, choir rehearsals or pottery classes could slow ageing, says Theo Farrant in Euronews, according to a new study of more than 3,500 people. Researchers at UCL found that those who took part in an arts activity at least once a week appeared to age around 4% more slowly, at a biological level, than those who rarely engaged with them – similar to the benefits gained by those who do weekly exercise.

End of an era

Princeton exams, as imagined by ChatGPT

For the past 133 years, kids at Princeton haven’t been invigilated during exams, they just promise not to cheat and the profs leave them to it. The so-called “Princeton Honour Code” has survived several wars, the upheaval of the 1960s, the advent of Google and even the iPhone. But this week, Princeton’s faculty voted to end it, and bring back the click clack of the invigilator’s shoes in the exam hall. You’ll never guess why.

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