The Week 1566

A plate stolen by a student from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, well over 100 years ago has finally been returned. Decorated with a view of Caius Court on the front, and marked “Caius Coll. Kitchens” on the back, the plate was pilfered by Gordon Stewart Wimbush, some time after he joined the college in 1908. In the 1960s his widow passed the plate to a close family friend, who was then in her 20s. Now 85, she decided that it was time it went back to its “proper home”. An American couple with a combined age of 216 have been declared the oldest married couple in the world. Eleanor and Lyle Gittens (aged 107 and 108 respectively) met at a college basketball game in 1941 and married in 1942…

What happened BBC bias battle Donald Trump threatened this week to sue the BBC for $1bn for “deceitfully” editing footage of a speech he gave on 6 January 2021, the day of the Capitol riot. BBC chair Samir Shah had earlier apologised for the “error of judgement” in the 2024 Panorama episode, which, by splicing together quotes from two separate parts of the speech, gave the false impression that Trump had directly incited the riot, omitting the section where he urged the crowd to protest “peacefully and patriotically”. However, Shah rejected claims of systemic bias. The row broke out last week after internal memos written by Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, were leaked to The Daily Telegraph. As well as complaining about Panorama’s…

What happened The UN’s Cop30 climate summit opened in Brazil on Monday, against a backdrop of warnings that key targets are slipping out of reach. Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron were among the guests at a curtainraising “Leaders’ Summit” in the Amazonian city of Belém last week, where the 11-day conference is being held. However, Donald Trump – who recently called climate change a “con job” – stayed away, as did China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi. One of the key issues due to be addressed at the summit was how countries can adapt to the world’s changing climate. Before it began, Brazil faced criticism for felling tens of thousands of trees to build an eight-mile road to transport the 56,118 delegates (from 193 nations and the EU)…

Controversy of the week The chaos in our prisons As Lady Bracknell might say, “to allow one dangerous, illegal migrant sex offender to be mistakenly released may be regarded as a misfortune”. To lose two in the space of a fortnight “looks like carelessness”, said The Independent. The Government seems unable to get through a week without some catastrophe sending its popularity to “fresh Stygian depths”. And last week, days after the farcical manhunt for Ethiopian migrant Hadush Kebatu, Justice Secretary (and Deputy PM) David Lammy suffered fresh humiliation when it emerged that a 24-year-old Algerian, Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, was on the run, and had been for six days – having been accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth. Prison officers only discovered Kaddour-Cherif was missing because he was due in court for…

Heywood Hill, the bookshop in Mayfair where Nancy Mitford worked in the 1940s, is now offering what it calls “London’s greatest book subscription”. For the top-of-the-range package, which costs £1,200 a year, subscribers are given a reading consultation with one of the store’s employees, and are then sent 40 hand-picked hardbacks over 12 months. It’s like “having an intellectual personal trainer”, said one customer, the CEO of an international commodities trading firm. Almost half of UK adults have bought a toy for themselves or another adult this year. Toy makers are hoping to cash in on this trend at Christmas, with Wicked 2 dolls among those expected to appeal to “kidults” as well as to kids.…

David Szalay, who won the Booker Prize with his sixth novel, Flesh. It traces the life of a working-class Hungarian émigré – a soldier turned strip-club bouncer, turned property developer – from his teens to middle age, to explore themes including masculinity, trauma and power. Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, who was released from prison just three weeks into his five-year sentence. The 70-year-old had contested the decision to jail him before the appeals process was exhausted, which is unusual for white-collar crimes. Under the terms of his release, he may not leave the country or meet witnesses or others associated with his case. Comebacks, with reports that the Duchess of Sussex is returning to acting, after an eight-year hiatus. Meghan is said to be making a cameo appearance…