China has announced retaliatory tariffs of 10-15% on American imports, including liquefied natural gas, coal and crude oil, after Donald Trump’s 10% levy on all Chinese products came into effect this morning. The US president delayed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico after both countries agreed to bulk up border security to crack down on fentanyl smuggling. Reform UK has overtaken Labour in a national opinion poll for the first time. YouGov found that Nigel Farage’s party is on 25%, with Labour at 24% and the Conservatives 21%. Nearly a quarter of those who voted for the Tories in last summer’s election now back Reform. The forthcoming release of the fourth Bridget Jones film has – apparently – resulted in people buying more of the ingredients in her disastrous recipes. Waitrose claims there has been a surge in demand for Bridget classics, including leek and potato soup, orange marmalade – and cheap chardonnay.

Why the young are embracing “supervillain vibes”

Last week, Hudson Thames, star of Marvel’s new animated TV series Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, made a striking remark about the show, says Jemima Kelly in the FT. “I thought it was awesome,” the LA-based 30-year-old told an interviewer. “My biggest fear was that it was gonna be annoying and woke, and it wasn’t.” After the inevitable backlash from the online left, the show’s producer claimed the actor “misspoke”. But I don’t believe he did. The fact is, it’s no longer hip or cutting edge to appear overtly progressive. Instead of countercultural, “wokeness” now feels distinctly mainstream and “virtually middle-aged”. This is just the latest sign of a profound vibe shift: suddenly, saying what you actually think is cool and “sticking to a prescribed social etiquette about what you can and can’t say” is not.

Donald Trump is a major beneficiary of this shift – young people “swung sharply to the right” in November’s election, with Trump winning 56% of male Gen Z voters. Sean Monahan, the trend forecaster who coined the term “vibe shift”, argues that during lockdown a kind of “nostalgia for a less restricted, more licentious time” began to take hold. “Covid really pushed a lot of people over the edge,” he says. Young people couldn’t do what they wanted or say what they thought, and they began to see the past as “freer, more hedonistic”, and essentially better. Monahan calls the new cultural phase the “boom boom aesthetic”: conspicuous consumption, ostentatious displays of wealth and “supervillain vibes”. The right is back, and there’s no need to be shy about it this time.