The Week 1555

A clock that first struck the hour as Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne is working again, to horologists’ delight. The turret clock at the Church of St John the Baptist in Winchester, which dates to 1559, is thought to have been silent for more than a century. It was removed for safekeeping in the 1960s, but after an £8,000 fundraising effort, specialists from the Cumbria Clock Company were brought in to restore the device. It can now be heard ticking away in the nave. Ethel Caterham, the world’s oldest person and the last surviving Edwardian, celebrated her 116th birthday last week. Caterham was born in Hampshire in 1909, when Edward VII still had a year left on the throne – and became the world’s oldest living person in April,…

What happened Farage’s asylum challenge Nigel Farage announced on Tuesday that his Reform UK party would detain and deport all irregular migrants and ban them from re-entering the country for life. He promised to extract the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and suspend the Refugee Convention and “any other barriers” to deportation, declaring: “We are not very far away from major civil disorder.” Labour branded his plans unworkable; the Tories accused him of recycling their ideas. Two days earlier, Yvette Cooper had announced a plan to fast-track asylum appeals to clear the 51,000-strong backlog in the system. The Home Secretary said a new body of “professional adjudicators” would hear cases, enabling the Government to meet its promise to end the use of asylum hotels by 2029.…

What happened Israel drew wide international condemnation this week, when it launched an air strike in which at least 20 people, including five journalists, were killed at a hospital in Gaza. The first of two blasts hit the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis at 10am on Monday, killing a journalist and others; another then struck ten minutes later, when more journalists and medics had arrived. The attack, and the apparent use of the “double-tap” tactic, in which targets are hit twice quickly, was condemned by the UN, the UK, France and Germany. Donald Trump said he was “not happy” about the attack, which Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mishap”. Meanwhile, Israel continued to bombard Gaza City as its forces pushed into its outskirts. Last week, the UN-backed Integrated…

Controversy of the week A free-speech martyr? Lucy Connolly walked free from HMP Peterborough last week – “but she is not going back to a quiet life”, said Tom Slater in The Spectator. The Northampton childminder has become a “totem” in the free speech wars, having served “the longest sentence ever handed down in the UK for a single social-media post”. In 2024, after three girls were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, and as rumours swirled that the killer was an asylum seeker, Connolly, 41, fired off a “life-ruining” tweet: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f**king hotels full of the bastards for all I care … If that makes me racist so be it.” Connolly deleted her post within four hours…

Marks & Spencer is opening a secondhand clothing store on eBay, amid big demand for “pre-loved” clothes. People will be able to use a free courier service to donate clothes, with Oxfam taking a share of the profits; if the donation includes at least one M&S item, they’ll receive a £5 voucher. Primark and H&M already offer secondhand sales. There’s a new Gen Z stereotype doing the rounds on TikTok: the “performative male”. This is a man who makes ostentatious attempts to impress progressive women. The “performative male” may be seen posing with an oat-milk matcha, pretending to read The Bell Jar or carrying a tote bag bearing feminist slogans, says The Guardian. He may even carry tampons for “women in need”.…

Taylor Swift, who sent the internet into a frenzy when she announced her engagement to American football player Travis Kelce. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the pop star wrote on Instagram, underneath a photo of Kelce on bended knee under a lush floral gazebo. Within 24 hours, the post had been liked by more than 30 million people. Peace and quiet, with the launch of Transport for London’s new campaign to tackle “headphone dodgers” on the network. Posters urging passengers to “be considerate” and not “disturb others with loud music or calls” will be rolled out this autumn. KPop Demon Hunters, which has become Netflix’s most viewed film ever. The animated musical about a K-pop band has been watched more than 230 million times. Its…