The UN security council will vote today on a draft US resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as Israel makes plans for a ground offensive on Rafah. The proposal, which is tied to the release of hostages held by Hamas, marks the first time the Biden administration has supported calls for an “immediate” stop to fighting. Beijing could cause gridlock on British roads by remotely stopping Chinese-made electric vehicles, MPs have been told in a review of UK economic security. Jim Saker, head of the Institute of the Motor Industry, also warned that Chinese EVs could be used to steal sensitive data from motorists. German scientists have worked out why teenagers stink, says The Guardian. As a result of changes in puberty, their sweat contains high levels of chemicals that smell of urine, goats and cheese. 🧀🐐

Did furlough ruin the economy?

The night before he announced furlough, four years ago this week, Rishi Sunak “didn’t sleep”, says Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. The then chancellor felt physically sick at the sheer scale of his gamble. Would paying 80% of employees’ wages save millions of jobs, or would it create welfare dependency, making things worse long-term? Would it just “prop up jobs that were never coming back”, costing a fortune merely to delay economic rejuvenation? “The test, as he knew, would come years later.” And it turns out he was right to worry. Furlough has been a catastrophe: Britain is one of the few countries whose workforce is still smaller than it was before the pandemic.

The Bank for International Settlements has found that, worldwide, in countries with more generous furlough arrangements, employment is recovering more slowly. It has also noted an “apparent change in the attitude towards work and the way we think about work”. In Britain, lockdown was followed by an acute “worker shortage crisis”. But at the same time, the proportion claiming unemployment benefits in our cities rose to levels comparable to the 2008 crash or 1992 recession. In Blackpool, 25% are officially out of work; in Middlesborough it’s 22%, Liverpool 20%. These cities are “teeming with jobs” – to have so many idle is an “economic and social scandal”. It’s no surprise that furlough was hugely popular when it was first announced, but a worried Sunak told aides at the time: “Let’s see how these polls look when they get the bill for all this.” As so often, he was “right first time”.

👨🏻‍⚕️😰 The bigger problem is people saying they’re “too sick to work”. Five years ago, two million were in this category. Today it’s 2.7 million – the equivalent to losing the entire working-age population of Birmingham. Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, recently explained how it works, “or doesn’t”. Patients go to the doctor and say, “I’m feeling rather down”. After an appointment lasting “on average about seven minutes”, the doctor then, in 94% of cases, signs them off as “not fit to carry out any work whatsoever”. 

A massive majority wouldn’t “necessarily be a blessing” for Keir Starmer, says Sam Freedman on Substack. One of the best tools a prime minister has to maintain party unity is “patronage”: giving government jobs to potentially unruly MPs. But there are only a certain number of those jobs to give out, so the bigger the majority, the more “disgruntled backbenchers” you have. It’s a similar problem with parliamentary votes – when there’s no danger of losing them, MPs feel more comfortable rebelling on issues close to their hearts. Internal dissent can spread, and factions can “build up quickly”.

The tricky thing about big, blingy engagement rings, says The Daily Telegraph, is what on earth do you do with them if your marriage goes south? For Emily Ratajkowski, the answer was: take it apart and turn it into two “divorce rings”. The supermodel says she was inspired by a friend’s grandmother, who wore a “snake ring” with lots of different gems from her failed marriages. Jewellers say it’s becoming a trend in the UK too, though some divorcees worry about bad juju in the old gemstones. “I’ve had clients do a lot of ‘witchy’ things to them,” says jeweller Jessie Thomas, “like boil them in milk and put them in a plant pot under the full moon.”

A new Cold War in Africa

Since it began in 2020, says Le Monde, the series of coups d’état that brought anti-French military officers to power in three Sahel countries – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – has generally been seen as an anti-colonial project. But the “brutal eviction” of US soldiers from Niger last Saturday, on the orders of the ruling junta, suggests another dimension to the “wave of authoritarianism” that has gripped the region: the return of the Cold War. The last French soldier left Niger in December, but the US had kept 1,000 troops stationed at the city of Agadez, not only to maintain the fight against jihadists, but also to stem “Russia’s growing influence”.

On the latter, they have clearly failed. Last week's “slap in the face for Washington” came hot on the heels of an announcement of “closer military cooperation” between Niger’s rulers and Moscow. Junta General Abdourahamane Tiani recently refused to receive America’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, but notably joined Mali and Burkina Faso in quickly congratulating Vladimir Putin for “winning” his sham election. Washington is also deeply concerned that Niger could now move closer to Iran, motivated by Nigerien uranium deposits and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. Just as it was between the 1960s and the 1990s, after decolonisation, Africa is once again a “battleground for proxy confrontations between the East and West”.

When I was a diplomat, says Jeremy Dicker in International Intrigue, I used to love working with the Japanese. Their ambassadors often brought a chef with them from Tokyo to postings abroad. And to “keep everyone happy”, these chefs would cook not only Japanese fare, but also local dishes – meaning visitors were served two meals at the same time. On days involving a Japanese “working lunch”, I learned to skip breakfast – and often dinner too.

It’s the back of the new England football shirt, featuring what Nike calls a “playful update” on the St George’s Cross. The sports firm claims its £125 top will, for some reason, “unite and inspire”. Keir Starmer is among many prominent voices calling on Nike to change the design, telling The Sun the flag is “used by everybody” and that “we just need to be proud of it”. Reform UK MP Lee Anderson predictably went one further, telling the Express: “This virtue signalling, namby-pamby, pearl-clutching woke nonsense must stop. Any more of this and I’ll be on the first flight to Rwanda.”