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Eir Nolsøe Economics Correspondent |
Britain’s recent net migration figures can be described as a roller-coaster, plunging during Covid before racing to record highs – and now hurtling down again.
For the first time in more than three decades, we could even see net zero migration this year.
However, the legacy of the ‘‘Boriswave’’ has left a lasting impact on Britain’s economy.
More than one in five workers is now foreign-born – a record figure, much higher than at the time of the EU referendum.
Meanwhile, more Britons are sitting idle, with 604,000 people dropping out of the workforce since Covid.
Foreigners are also more likely to be in work than working-age British people.
As a result, we are more reliant on immigrants than ever – not that this pleases the public.
For chancellors such as Rachel Reeves and her Conservative predecessors, high immigration has allowed them to delay difficult decisions.
Propping up the care sector, funding the higher education system and tackling the vast national debt are all examples.
Now, the bill is due. As the sugar rush of a temporary but extremely large surge in migration wears off, political leaders must confront what comes next. Continue reading ➤ |
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Rachel Cranshaw Hotels Editor |
This week, we launched our guide to the 250 best hotels in Britain. Our dedicated team of 60 reviewers visited hundreds of properties across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to compile this definitive list. Hotels were included on the basis of their location, character, service, facilities, rooms and dining.
Building this list was, unsurprisingly, a mammoth task. The process began with a couple of round-table discussions, in which we combed through our 2,000 British hotel reviews and argued it out. My team and I divided the territory into the nine English regions alongside Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We had input from our columnists – Mark C O’Flaherty for Scotland, and Fiona Duncan for various regions, particularly the South East, where she is based.
To be in the running, a hotel needed to have scored 8/10 or higher (an average of six individually scored categories), which we classified as “excellent”.
Compiling this was a wonderful reminder of what makes British hotels so special, from slick city properties to country houses, cosy pubs with rooms and seaside boltholes. Continue reading ➤ |
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Daniel Hannan Europhiles like Burnham, Starmer, and Streeting are the Jacobites of today. They champion a lost cause that they know cannot win Continue reading ➤
Janet Daley Reeves has declared war on inequality – but it is the engine that drives success Continue reading ➤
John Bolton The Castro regime may be in its final weeks Continue reading ➤ |
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The suspect, named as Nasire Best (left), opened fire outside as journalists took cover in the Briefing Room (right) |
A model of the new Tempest fighter jet |
Britain built the Tornado jet in collaboration with Italy and Germany, and the result was an expensive, prolonged disaster. Then it developed the Typhoon jet in collaboration with Italy and other nations, leading to an even more expensive and even more prolonged disaster. Now Britain is preparing to embark on a multinational collaboration once again, building the Tempest jet with Italy and Japan. What, asks Lewis Page, do you think the result will be? Continue reading ➤ |
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You might think that, upon meeting a psychopath, you’d instincitively know to run a mile – but the truth is that it’s not always easy to spot one. They are very skilled at mirroring others, so you might at first think that they really understand you, have lots in common, and share your unique sense of humour. This is just one of the ways they manipulate you to get their own way. Here, experts reveal how to spot a pyschopath – and how to protect yourself. Continue reading ➤ |
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Vladimir Putin is struggling to recruit volunteers to fight in Ukraine |
After years of shielding Russians from the costs of war, Vladimir Putin is facing a moment of truth. Drone attacks, economic stagnation and mounting manpower shortages are forcing him towards a stark choice: scale back the war in Ukraine or roll back some of Russia’s last post-Soviet freedoms with a coercive, Stalinist-style mobilisation of society. Continue reading ➤ |
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Terry Butcher spoke to The Telegraph ahead of an ITV documentary in which he shares the grief he has suffered since the death of his son, Chris, in 2017 |
Terry Butcher is immortalised in English football for his blood-soaked shirt. At 67, however, he is fighting a profoundly different battle. Following the death of his eldest son, Chris, an Army captain tormented by PTSD, Butcher was plunged into an unrelenting nightmare. Now, he is focused on honouring his son’s memory and ensuring that other veterans do not face the same lack of support. Continue reading ➤ |
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At their best, historical films use the unrivalled powers of cinema to create the illusion of time travel, writes David Alexander, but the worst of them are baggy and mannered, unworthy of the real people and events they depict. Time for a ranking of the ones worth watching – and a public health warning against the stinkers you should avoid. It’s good news for Lawrence of Arabia aficionados, but bad news for fans of Gone With the Wind. If you disagree with my choices, or want to make recommendations of your own, leave a comment at the bottom of this article. I’ll be responding to them at 11am. Continue reading ➤
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‘Fiction is more useful than fact will ever be’
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Sam Matthews Boehmer |
I have a problem with non-fiction. I mean, as a genre, as reading material. This is quite a claim to make. How could I be so reductive? To damn non-fiction could be construed as setting yourself against the entirety of history; spurning religion, philosophy, politics and science.
To clarify, I am not scorning non-fiction like some open-shirted dandy. Only rarely do I write with a quill, or sit on a tree stump scratching a soiled armpit, yearning for love unrequited. I am not unaware of the fact that some of the greatest works of literature are instances of hard-bitten fact or theory. Our societies continue to be shaped by those who think and experiment, who eke out the hidden meaning, or lack thereof, in postmodernism, or maim dogs in the name of some scientific innovation.
Rather, I am chiding the idea that non-fiction is, by virtue of being factual, “harder” or more “useful” than fiction. That is what a “friend” recently said to me. They were consumed by a provocatively large tome, and used that nasty phrase “knowledge is power”, as if it meant something deliciously profound. How wrong they were.
For every non-fiction book, I read roughly five works of fiction. I am none the worse for it. As yet, I have not dozed into a psychedelic dreamland of unreality, in which walrus-riding eggmen convince me that the Earth was always flat. With my feet rooted on solid ground, I have eased through poetry and prose that has given me histories, ideas and stellar writing, all packaged into a neat whole. Substitute the personal for the objective, the paradoxical for the plain, and there is just as much “profit” in “learning” while traversing sweeping imaginative fields.
Nowadays, some non-fiction may as well be fiction. If you were to characterise the two, broadly: fiction is attractively mercurial, while non- fiction can be impassive and in need of pep. Non-fiction’s problem comes in its attempt to bridge this gap. It is jealous: chart-leading non-fiction continually strives to borrow from fiction. Research is often presented in quasi-narratives, on the understanding that the storytelling sets it apart. Readers supposedly pine for imagined details of the Hundred Years’ War’s bloodiest gore. They fetishise the excitement of the Winter of Discontent, vibrating in anticipation of what happens next.
These are fiction’s devices. I doubt you could find me a work of history as instructive as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, or social commentary as redolent as Dickens’s Bleak House. When these thefts take place the other way around, they are performed with a sly eye for eccentric originality, as in Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot, which doubles as an excruciatingly well-researched psychobiography, while really being a grief-stricken evocation of the adversities of late middle-age. Read it and go figure.
Fiction’s power extends beyond being “just entertainment”. Albert Camus is often credited with writing that “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth”. The fun part is that he never actually put it to paper. The line is a fiction, and that’s the point. Ultimately, while the important thing is that we read, read and read a bit more, whatever, whenever, open-shirted or otherwise, it is also true that invention, handled well, can illuminate reality more clearly than objectivity alone.
Do you agree with Sam? Send your replies here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of From the Editor PM, for which you can sign up here.
Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. |
Thorn being interviewed in the Netflix documentary The Diamond Heist |
Air Commodore ‘‘Tiger’’ Tim Thorn, who has died aged 83, was a Cold War fighter pilot and instructor of rare gifts as well as boundless energy, writes Andrew M Brown, our Obituaries Editor.
He won the nickname “nine lives” because of the many airborne close shaves he survived through skill – including a collision in cloudy weather, a forced landing with a dead engine, and another emergency landing when his engine caught fire shortly after take-off.
His life of adventure rivalled that of any hero of Boy’s Own magazine. In 2000, as the De Beers diamond company’s global security chief, he played a crucial role in foiling the Millenium Dome diamond heist. The attempted robbery with a bulldozer and sledgehammers produced the immortal Sun headline “We’re only here for De Beers”, and was the subject of a Netflix documentary featuring Thorn.
Thorn, right, pictured after completing his 100th parachute jump |
On his advice, the priceless diamonds on display were replaced with replicas, so even if the thieves had succeeded in breaking in – in fact, the Flying Squad were lying in wait – they’d have escaped with worthless crystal fakes.
Thorn was also a passionate sportsman, who went to the 1968 Winter Olympics as a member of the British bobsleigh team. Read the full obituary here ➤ |
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Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was ADOPTABLE. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. |
Thank you for reading. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor
P.S. Please share your thoughts on the newsletter here. |
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