John Prescott, who served as deputy prime minister between 1997 and 2007, has died aged 86. One of New Labour’s “big beasts”, he was chiefly remembered for owning two Jaguars and punching a protester who threw an egg at him, and was a key link between the party’s traditional voters and Tony Blair’s modernising leadership. Paying tribute, Blair called Prescott “one of the most talented people I ever encountered in politics… and definitely the most unusual”. Judges at the International Criminal Court have issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as for former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s almost-certainly-dead commander Mohammed Deif. The Hague said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the three bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Maurizio Cattelan’s viral artwork Comedian – a banana duct-taped to a wall – has fetched a whopping $6.2m at auction. Its new owner, crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, will receive: a banana, a roll of duct tape, and instructions on how to combine them, including, crucially, “how to replace the banana”.

The political power of Farmer Clarkson

There was something oddly profound about Jeremy Clarkson’s appearance at the farmer’s march on Whitehall this week, says Tom McTague in UnHerd. His defence of rural Britain against what he called Keir Starmer’s “infernal government” was a reminder of the animating spirit of Clarkson’s Farm: an old, “almost forgotten” Toryism. This is not the “free trade” ideology of Liz Truss, who is held in contempt by farmers for her ruinous zero-tariff deals with New Zealand and Australia. Instead, it is the deep conservatism that drove many people’s instinctive sympathy with Brexit: “protectionist, national, territorial and utterly opposed to centralising notions of uniformity”.

What Clarkson represents is really a return to the politics of Benjamin Disraeli. “In a progressive country change is constant,” the old Tory icon warned. The question, he said, is not whether to resist change, which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out “in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws, and the traditions of a people”, or in deference to “abstract principles”. Disraeli thought the former, as does Clarkson. Starmer and Rachel Reeves believe in the latter. And if I were the Labour leader, I would be worried that this is “the wrong side to be on today”, particularly in the era of Donald Trump and the “animal spirits” his election has released into popular culture. The real power of Clarkson’s politics, and the threat he poses to Starmer, is captured in TE Utley’s self-professed brand of Toryism: “at once traditionalist and populist, which holds sway in every public bar in the kingdom and is almost entirely denied parliamentary expression by the Establishment”.

Reports that two undersea internet cables were severed in the Baltic Sea over the weekend in a suspected act of Chinese sabotage have gone largely under the radar, says Lewis Page in The Daily Telegraph. But it’s a big deal. In Britain we import 15% of our electricity and 40% of our gas via subsea cables and pipelines, meaning we’re “utterly dependent on seabed infrastructure to keep the lights on”. If malign states start targeting it – as we saw with the rupture of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022 – we could be in real trouble.

Donald Trump has long had a signature dance move, says Axios: rhythmically pumping his fists while shaking his hips. Since his second election victory, the “Trump Dance” has become a popular celebration for professional sports stars. Several American football players have pulled it out; the UFC fighter Jon Jones performed it in front of the president-elect at Madison Square Garden; US footballer Christian Pulisic celebrated a recent goal with it; and English golfer Charley Hull did the dance at a tournament in Florida. While Pulisic and others were quick to say it was not a political endorsement, it’s clear that “Trumpism is making its way into pop culture in ways that it didn’t the first time he was in office”.

Putin is giving Europe “the middle finger”

As the war in Ukraine escalates, Kyiv’s allies in Europe look more fractured than ever, says Der Spiegel. Olaf Scholz sparked uproar last week by speaking to Vladimir Putin on the phone without consulting Paris, London or Warsaw. Polish PM Donald Tusk wrote on X that “nobody will stop Putin with phone calls”; Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said “the strategy of achieving peace through de-escalation has failed”. It didn’t help that within 48 hours of the call Moscow launched one of its biggest air strikes since the start of the war, hitting key energy infrastructure targets across Ukraine. One Finnish commentator said Putin had effectively “given the German Chancellor the middle finger”.

Europe’s response to the US allowing Kyiv to fire its long-range missiles into Russian territory has been similarly uneven. Britain has followed America’s lead; Germany has ruled it out; France hasn’t made up its mind. Part of the problem is that the countries which once led Europe’s Ukraine policy are too preoccupied with what’s going on at home. Scholz is facing political turmoil after his government collapsed earlier this month. Emmanuel Macron, once one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, is similarly tied up after taking a heavy beating in parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer hasn’t even set foot in Kyiv since taking office in July. Just when Ukraine needs its European allies the most, they are “manoeuvring between disunity and helplessness”.

The conservation group Twentieth Century Society has compiled a list of 10 British buildings it deems worthy of listed status, says Dezeen. Their top picks include: Waterloo International Terminal in London, which was completed for the opening of the Channel Tunnel 30 years ago; Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex; the RAC Headquarters in Bristol, which has a meeting room suspended 35 metres above ground; St John’s College Library, Cambridge; the Pepsi Max Big One rollercoaster on Blackpool pleasure beach; and, perhaps most surprisingly, a student halls in Aberdeen. See the rest here.

I’ve tried all sorts of wacky beauty treatments this year, says Lucy Holden in You Magazine. The results were mixed. During “foot botox”, intended to eradicate any pain from high heels, I veered between yelping and trying not to kick my therapist in the face. I certainly don’t recommend eating “sea moss” – a type of seaweed packed with vitamins and antioxidants – which had the consistency and taste of “liquified Vaseline”. One surprisingly effective treatment was “polynucleotides” extracted from salmon, which were injected into my undereyes. “I definitely look fresher – and no, I don’t smell like fish afterwards.” See the rest here.

It’s a rare all-black penguin that was spotted on South Georgia Island in the Atlantic Ocean, says The Independent. Its unusual appearance is the result of a genetic mutation known as melanism, in which an over-abundance of melanin stops the bird producing any of the breed’s usual white and yellow feathers. Penguins with exclusively black feathers are so rare that there is almost no scientific research about them. Yves Adams, the Belgian photographer who snapped the onyx outlier, said the bird was “completely accepted by the other birds”.