At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient. America has boomed even as its trade war with China has escalated. Germany has withstood the loss of Russian gas supplies without suffering an economic disaster. War in the Middle East has brought no oil shock. Missile-firing Houthi rebels have barely touched the global flow of goods. As a share of global gdp, trade has bounced back from the pandemic and is forecast to grow healthily this year.
Elections for the European parliament are less than a month away and far-right parties are predicted to make significant gains in many of the bloc’s 27 member states. The dire shortage of housing, leading to rising rents and property prices, is becoming a unifying focus for voters’ discontent with their current political leaders.
The issue has sparked protests from Amsterdam to Prague and Milan, as the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, reports. The data is undeniably worrying as young Europeans spend up to 10 times an average salary on rent and mortgage payments, and big cities from the Baltic states to the Iberian peninsula have registered average property price rises of close to 50%. As a result more EU residents live with their parents for longer and put off life-decisions later into adulthood.
While housing does not fall within MEPs’ remit, it is a visible locus for the sense of social unease that has beset the whole bloc and has become a pivot for the far right to turn on racialised minorities. But as European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam discovers, it is those communities that are doubly penalised through discrimination from landlords who, research has shown, turn away potential renters with “foreign” surnames. The political and social ramifications of the housing crisis in Europe is mirrored elsewhere across the globe and is a subject we will return to in the Guardian Weekly in this year of elections.
From extreme cold to strong magnets and high pressures, the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) provides conditions for researching potential wonder materials
Times Literary Supplement (May 8 2024): The latest issue features ‘Reverie and revolution’ – Ian Penman on Surrealism; Crime fiction gets political; Scorsese’s English masters, women pianists and more….
Mrs Beeton’s recipes are still followed more than a century later. Kate Green raises a spoon to the first domestic goddess
This is how we brew it
Good coffee, companionship and delectable cakes are on offer in the cafés of the Cots-wolds. Ben Lerwill takes a sip
The magnificent seven
On the 75th birthday of Badminton Horse Trials, Kate Green salutes seven heroes of eventing’s premier weekend
Mere moth or merveille du jour?
The names of our butterflies and moths owe their artistic overtones to a golden group, discovers Peter Marren
Heaven is a place on earth
From Sissinghurst to Charleston, gardens offered the women of the Bloomsbury group refuge, solace and inspiration. Deborah Nicholls-Lee enjoys a stroll
Jane Tuckwell’s favourite painting
The event director of Badminton Horse Trials chooses a hunting scene with personal resonance
Where are the food targets?
Farmers should be allowed to prioritise producing food, believes Minette Batters
An air of homely distinction
The Anglo-American artistic circle of Russell House in Broadway, Worcestershire, lives on through its current incumbents, John Martin Robinson is pleased to say
Blow the froth off
Spring has donned its lacy garb as cow parsley flowers. Vicky Liddell walks the umbellifer lanes
There is no sting in this tale
The fearsome scorpion fly is straight out of science-fiction central casting, says Ian Morton
Angels in the house
Jo Caird marvels at a rare survival in a Cotswold church
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell packs her case and runs away to the airport
Interiors
Curl up and get cosy with the comfiest bedroom accessories, chosen by Amelia Thorpe
A haunt of ancient peace
Recently renovated, the gardens of Iford Manor in Wiltshire are as idyllic today as they were when Harold Peto created the Italianate design, marvels Tiffany Daneff
Native herbs
John Wright adds tonic and raises a glass to the juniper
I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly
Quivering, crystal-clear savoury jelly is all grown up. Tom Parker Bowles braves the wobble
Dulce et decorum est
Michael Sandle is still fighting the good fight through his art as he turns 88, reveals John McEwen
Put some graphite in your pencil
A trick of Cumbrian geology led to worldwide fame for Keswick, scribbles Harry Pearson
The New Yorker (May 6, 2024): The new issue‘s cover featuresMark Ulriksen’s “Shotime” – For many fans, the real harbinger of spring is the beginning of baseball season.
‘Science Magazine – May 2, 2024: The new issue features ‘Superspreading Seeds’ – Influencers spread health messages across remote villages; making sense of evidence on early childhood education; Brain and muscle clocks cooperate to resist aging…
Times Literary Supplement (May 1, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Making it New’ – A.E. Stallings on the innovative classicism of Anne Carson’s poetry; Salman Rushdie’s memoir of survival; Politics and performance and more…
Kate Green and Agnes Stamp take a geological tour of our islands to dig out what makes them special; granite country, chalk downland, The Fens, Wealden clay, Welsh slate, Yorkshire mill-stone grit, The Highlands and Cotswold limestone
Matthew Rice sketches the myriad architectural styles
Mark Diacono rubs the soil between his fingers
Victoria Marston wraps her tongue around dialects
Harry Pearson downs a pint or three of local ale
And finally, the ultimate quiz
Et in Arcadia ego
For Constable, the countryside was a lover, for Samuel Palmer, it offered an escape from the real world and for Paul Nash it held an inescapable lure. Michael Prodger examines the effect of British landscapes on art
The Duchess of Marlborough’s favourite painting
The ceramicist chooses an evocation of her childhood
Let us now praise the Nanny State
We should embrace Mary Poppins-esque common sense, believes Carla Carlisle
The legacy
Kate Green salutes the 10th Duke of Beaufort on the eve of the Badminton Horse Trials that set British riders on their gallop to three-day-eventing victory
Cometh the ice men
Don’t cast those jumpers out just yet, advises Lia Leendertz
Interiors
Get ready for the warmer weather with Amelia Thorpe’s pick of outdoor furniture
London Life
Royal photographs
All you need to know about cloth, cheese and Trafalgar Square
Jack Watkins tells the tale of Covent Garden
Adam Hay-Nicholls relishes the roar of engines in Savile Row
Up hill and down dale
Kathryn Bradley-Hole finds that formality is leavened by verve and personality in the gardens of Dalemain at Penrith, Cumbria, where the blue poppies bloom
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson gathers bunches of fresh watercress
Native herbs
Unmistakeable in scent, versatile in use, wild garlic is a forager’s dream, but don’t let dairy cows graze it, warns Ian Morton
Travel
Mark Hedges escapes to our nearest paradise, the Isles of Scilly
Tom Parker Bowles feasts on a proper club sandwich
Pamela Goodman dares to swim the Dordogne
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell takes her time choosing the latest wonderful watches unveiled in Geneva
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
