Steve Coogan has accused Keir Starmer’s Labour government of a “derogation of all the principles they were supposed to represent” and said they were paving the way for the “racist clowns” of Reform UK.
The actor, comedian and producer said the party he had long supported was now for people “inside the M25” and described the prime minister’s first year in power as underwhelming.
“I knew before the election he was going to be disappointing. He hasn’t disappointed me in how disappointing he’s been,” he said.
Coogan spoke to the Guardian ahead of an address to the annual Co-op Congress in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, where he called for locally led grassroots movements to assemble across Britain and take back control from “multinational institutions and billionaires”.
The Bafta-winning actor, best known for his Alan Partridge persona, has backed Labour in several recent general elections but switched his support last year to the Green party.
Coogan, 59, said he “agreed wholeheartedly” with the statement released by former Labour MP Zarah Sultana on Thursday night, when she announced she was quitting the party to co-lead a left-wing alternative with Jeremy Corbyn.
Sultana said Britain’s two-party system “offers nothing but managed decline and broken promises” and that Labour had “completely failed to improve people’s lives”.
Coogan said: “Everything she said in her statement I agree wholeheartedly. I wish I’d said it myself.” However, he added that he was “reserving judgment” as to whether to support the new party at future elections if they field candidates.
The Philomena star said he did not blame working people for voting for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
“The success of Reform, I lay squarely at the feet of the neoliberal consensus, which has let down working people for the last 40 years and they’re fed up,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who they vote for, nothing changes for them.
“Keir Starmer and the Labour government have leant into supporting a broken system. Their modus operandi is to mitigate the worst excesses of a broken system and all that is is managed decline. What they’re doing is putting Band-Aids on the gash in the side of the Titanic.”
In his most strongly worded attack on Labour yet, Coogan described the party’s priorities in the last year as “a derogation of all the principles they were supposed to represent”.
“We have a Labour government and it’s no different from a Conservative government in neglecting ordinary people,” he added.
“I think Labour governs for people inside the M25 – that’s who they’re preoccupied with, and gesture politics. Every decision that comes from central government these days to me looks political and strategic and nothing to do with sincerity or any kind of firmly held ideological belief.”
Without meaningful action to improve the lives of ordinary people, Coogan said, both Labour and the Conservatives would face electoral oblivion.
“They’ll pave the way for the only alternative, which is a racist clown. Reform couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery but if there’s no alternative you understand why working people will make that choice,” he said.
Coogan spoke in Rochdale’s Grade I-listed town hall, which this weekend is hosting a congress of co-operative movements from across the world to mark this year’s UN-designated International Year of Co-operatives.
The actor is a supporter of Middleton Co-operating, a community-led initiative based in his home town, just outside Manchester, which aims to provide locally run energy, banking, social care, housing and other schemes.
He said the government’s focus on attracting investment to major cities had created a “doughnut of neglect” with poorer communities “ethnically cleansed”.
“You look at Manchester, you look at Liverpool, and you go: ‘Wow, look at these shiny new buildings’ and everything looks clean, there’s no crisp bags flying about in the street,” he said.
“The disenfranchised people who lived there before are not there any more. They’ve been ethnically cleansed. They’ve been booted out to the next poor area. So who’s benefiting?”
Coogan urged Labour to breathe life back into towns by empowering grassroots groups to take over neglected buildings, using compulsory purchase orders for example.
“It’s not just the fact that people are disempowered and feel like they have no autonomy. It’s compounded by the fact that these people, these multinationals, are enabled and supported by the government to keep their foot on the neck of working people,” he said.
It was “perfectly understandable” for working people to vote for Farage’s Reform in large parts of England, where many voters feel disenfranchised, Coogan said.
“But if any government wants to address that extremism, what they have to do is tackle the root cause,” he added.
“The root cause is poverty and economic decline in the post-industrial landscape, especially in the north. If Labour addressed that problem, Reform would go away – all their support would dissipate.”
It is understandable to be worried about your finances. The world seems to be lurching from one political crisis to the next, and each one has an impact on stock markets and prices.
A recent survey found UK consumers are worried about a slowing economy, possible tax increases in the next budget and rising food costs. We asked experts how you should manage your money in an uncertain world.
Investments
Stock markets around the world, especially in the US, were in flux earlier this year over Donald Trump’s tariff plans. Things have settled down now but it is impossible to predict what shocks may be around the corner.
If you hold stocks and shares – in an Isa or pension, perhaps – you may have been nervously checking their value. UK fund managers have been increasing their holdings in US companies over recent years, largely fuelled by the boom in tech stocks, so big moves over there have an impact here.
However, experts say the most important thing to do is to not sell up out of panic. The analyst Dan Coatsworth of the financial advisers AJ Bell says: “The worst thing people can do is to see troubling things in the news and then suddenly try to shift around their portfolio.” Markets have recovered in the past, he says, so patience is key.
Gold has tripled in price over the past decade. Photograph: Denys Rudyi/Alamy
Where this advice may differ is if you need your money for something in less than five years – such as a wedding, university fees or a house purchase. Then you should look at how much risk you are taking, he says.
Andrew Oxlade, an investment director at the fund management company Fidelity International, says this could mean switching some of your money away from the markets and into bonds. Bonds are issued by a corporation or country – the investor loans it money in exchange for a fixed rate of interest.
They are typically bought through a fund. Many investment management companies offer funds that have a split between equities and bonds, such as Vanguard’s Lifestrategy 80%.
Gold, an investment that is often seen as a safe bet during times of crisis, has tripled in price over the past decade, and many investors now hold a small amount in their portfolios, Oxlade says, after years of poor performance. Investing does not have to mean buying bars or coins – Fidelity says the most direct way for most is through an exchange traded fund that tracks the price of gold.
Mortgages
Interest rates in the UK can be affected by what goes on globally. The Bank of England is tasked with keeping inflation down. Before the war in Ukraine started, it had begun to put up rates, and as prices increased, it continued, raising them from 0.25% at the start of 2022 to 5.25% by August 2023, before holding them there for another year.
The Bank has been reducing rates and is expected to make more cuts later this year, but the question is when. If you are planning to take out a new mortgage – either to buy a home or as a remortgage – you face a decision about whether to fix for the short or long term, choose a tracker or even to go on a bank’s standard variable rate (SVR).
Currently, the best-priced two- and five-year fixed deals have a rate of just below 4%.
Nick Mendes of the brokers John Charcol says lenders are reducing rates at present largely because of falling swap rates, a key factor in how mortgages are priced. Swap rates reflect what the money markets expect to happen to interest rates in future.
“Fixed mortgage rates are more influenced by swap rates than the base rate itself, which means they are shaped by what markets think might happen in the future rather than what is happening today,” he says.
If you want to take out a mortgage you face a decision about whether to fix for the short or long term, choose a tracker or go on a bank’s SVR. Photograph: Ian Nolan/Getty Images/Image Source
Going on to a lender’s SVR in the hope that fixed rates will improve later in the year is a risky strategy as the rates are high, at about 6.5%, and can change at any time and increase your monthly repayments.
Tracker mortgages are also worth considering, Mendes says. These are linked to the Bank base rate. “They tend to start lower than SVRs and often come without early repayment charges, which means borrowers can move on to a fixed deal later,” he says.
Mendes says people who are remortgaging should not “sit back and wait. Most lenders allow you to secure a new deal up to six months in advance, which is a smart way to hedge your bets,” he says. “You can lock in a deal now as a safety net and still switch to something better if rates improve before the new deal begins.”
For new buyers, Mendes says they should base decisions on what is affordable now rather than making assumptions about what may or may not happen in the future. “The last position anyone wants to be in is having overstretched themselves on the assumption that they will be able to refinance on to something cheaper at the end of their fixed-rate period,” he adds.
You are not tied to a rate until completion, so you should be able to switch if a better deal comes along.
Savings
Savings rates could fall even before the Bank reduces the base rate, says Rachel Springall of the financial information site Moneyfacts, as account providers may decide that they have enough deposits for a certain product. “If the whole market starts moving in one direction, you’ll find that other peers will do the same because they don’t want to put themselves too high up [in best buy tables],” she says.
Until then, easy access and fixed-term rates are competitive, Springall says.
The best rates this week for fixed one-year and two-year bonds are from Cynergy Bank (4.55% for the one-year and 4.45% for the two-year), while an easy access account from Chase offers 5%, although this includes a 12-month bonus and is a variable rate, so it could go down.
There have been increases in the interest paid on fixed-rate bonds in recent weeks, she says.
Anna Bowes of the financial advisers The Private Office says “now is a really good time for a saver who has not been paying attention to their savings” as there is good competition in the market.
If you have money in a variable-rate account it may be a good time to move it to a fixed rate.
Pensions
The tumultuous times that stock markets have been having since the start of the year will have had a direct effect on many people in the UK through their pensions. Often funds are heavily invested in US stocks, so the ups and downs there could be affecting your retirement saving.
It is understandable if you are considering shifting money in your pension into other safer options such as bonds, says Helen Morrissey, the head of retirement analysis at the financial advice company Hargreaves Lansdown. However, unless you are cashing in your pension within the next five years, you should avoid reactions based on the international turmoil, she says.
The tumultuous times that stock markets have been having this year will affect many people in the UK through their pensions. Photograph: Alamy/PA
“Over the course of your saving journey, you will hit several periods of market volatility and it’s important to keep in mind that markets do recover over time,” she says. “Making kneejerk reactions such as changing investment strategy has the potential to lock in losses as you miss out when markets do recover.”
Workplace pensions are often invested in “lifestyling” funds, which reduce the amount of risk as the holder gets older by shifting from equities to bonds. So if you are approaching retirement this may be happening automatically.
If your fund has been hit by turbulence in the markets and you intend on retiring soon, Morrissey says that you may want to start to take a lower amount out from your fund than you had planned in order to allow the rest to recover from any losses caused by market turbulence.
“We suggest that people in [income] drawdown keep between one and three years’ worth of essential expenditure [from their savings] in an easy access account that they can use to supplement their income during times of turbulence,” she adds.
Another option, on retirement, is to invest some or all of your fund in an annuity, where returns are close to all-time highs. Annuities convert a lump sum from your pension into a regular guaranteed income for the rest of your life or a fixed term. A healthy 65-year-old can now get an annuity rate of 7.72% on average, according to the pension provider Standard Life – that means that for every £100,000 invested, they would get an annual income of £7,720.
Energy bills
About 21 million households will see their bills decrease after the price cap was reduced this week. For a household with typical usage, the cap has dropped by £129, to £1,720 a year. The good news may not last too long, however, as there are predictions of increases in October.
After the recent conflict between Iran and Israel, oil prices went up because of concerns that supplies could be affected by threats of a blockade of the strait of Hormuz. Prices later reduced after a ceasefire deal was agreed.
The energy price cap has dropped, but that may not be for long. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Will Owen of the price comparison website Uswitch says the volatility of the international economy has led to uncertainty. “We are now seeing predictions from various organisations and energy suppliers that the price cap from October onwards will probably go up,” he says.
To protect yourself against a rise you could considered a fixed-rate tariff – with these each unit of energy and the standing charges are set for a certain length of time.
The MoneySavingExpert site advises that you are “very likely” to save if you can find a fixed-rate deal priced at least 5% below the current price cap, which is predicted to fluctuate.
The current best deals are a 12-month fix from E.ON Next that is 8.8% below the cap, another from Outfox Energy that is 8.1% less and then a fix from EDF Energy that is 7.2% less, according to the site.
On an unseasonably warm day in October 2023, I arrived, ahead of the queues, at London’s Southbank Centre for a conceptual art takeover by the world-famous Marina Abramović Institute.
I had recently read Marina’s memoir Walk Through Walls, which had resonated. So, when I’d seen the event advertised – hours-long performances by artists she’d invited, curated and introduced by Marina – I bought a £60 ticket and waited for my time slot to enter the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I hadn’t seen performance art before, and this was due to include her well-known work The Artist Is Present with an artist sitting, static and silent, in a chair all day, as Marina once did for an accumulated 736 hours and 30 minutes at the Museum of Modern Art. I felt certain that it would affect me, I just wasn’t sure how.
It came at an interesting time in my life. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, the daughter of a priest who was physically abusive. I’d been in therapy for years, but my experiences still affected me and I’d recently cut contact with my father with my family. So, when I entered the first room at the Southbank where Marina was to spoke and introduce around a dozen artists, I was still coming to terms with this new way of dealing with my past.
I was immediately drawn to one of the artists, a man from Myanmar who was to perform the chair piece with a cloth sack over his head. We heard how he’d been part of an organisation in Myanmar that opposed violence and therefore risked death if he was publicly identified. I was moved by what he was risking for his art. I also knew it was a hard piece; Marina wasn’t going to give it to just anyone.
As people moved between performers, I saw him, seated in the atrium, with a large crowd; I waited for a quieter moment to return. When I finally stood before him, I was overcome. I felt an urge to sit down in front of him and didn’t care what others thought. I was compelled to do it for myself. I can’t say how long I sat there, maybe an hour. In that time, I rewrote my definition of “strength”. I used to think my father’s aggression made him strong but now I saw someone using his muscular arms and legs to be still, for peaceful protest. I imagined the loss he must have experienced in war and the mental strength to sit there. I thought of what I’d read in Marina’s book; how pain set in three hours into sitting still.
I cried: the good tears, where you let part of your past go. It felt cleansing. When I left, I felt lighter. I decided that this would be my father figure now: this person who had strength but did not hurt me, who had reasons to be aggressive but did not direct his anger towards a six-year-old whispering in her brother’s ear or disturbing his preaching, as my father had.
It unlocked something in me. It gave me a positive male figure to replace what had gone before and helped me not to hate my father or men. It also unblocked the creativity that had laid dormant within me, an artistic side that had reminded me too much of my father’s similar creative charisma. I started drawing: comic-books and illustrations.
I’m an atheist but I believe there are spiritual moments you can choose to embrace: this, for me, was one. I think of it often. I even have the poster from the takeover in my toilet, serving as a daily reminder. I’m 41 and throughout life I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. Usually, when I go to see art it’s to learn something new, and this was a big one. This changed me as a woman, as a soul, an immigrant, a creative, a child. That man gave himself to us as an artist and I accepted his gift.
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This is an updated version of an article first published in July 2022.
Three years ago, I wrote a column on the Premier League footballer we can now name as former Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey being arrested on suspicion of rape.
At that time, The Athletic could not name him. That has changed now he has been charged with five counts of rape and one of sexual assault, allegations which relate to three separate women who reported incidents which took place between 2021 and 2022 and which he denies.
Partey has been under investigation since February 2022 and was first arrested in July that same year. The piece I wrote, published in July 2022, detailed why I felt the (then unnamed) club’s decision not to suspend him while he was being investigated over such serious allegations sent the wrong message to women.
In the period since then he has been arrested, questioned by police and bailed seven times, all while he was helping Arsenal come desperately close to winning the Premier League title. He also played for Ghana at the 2022 World Cup.
Last season he made a total of 52 appearances for Arsenal in all competitions. Despite his contract at the club expiring on June 30, his image was still present on the official Arsenal website on Friday morning, only being removed later in the afternoon following the news that he had been charged.
While the primary concern here is for the alleged victims, the optics of today’s news could hardly be worse for Arsenal.
Their decision to keep on playing him, coupled with the vocal support offered by manager Mikel Arteta — who described how happy he was for Partey after he scored the opening goal in Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Tottenham in October 2022 (“for what he’s been through and the injuries… I’m so happy for him, he deserves it”) — already left them open to criticism.
Mikel Arteta regularly picked Thomas Partey (Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)
Now, that is compounded by the timing of the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to charge Partey just days after the expiry of his Arsenal contract.
Whether the club knew this development was coming or not, they are now facing difficult questions over the way they have handled this situation. And the brief statement they issued last night — “The player’s contract ended on June 30. Due to ongoing legal proceedings the club is unable to comment on the case” — does nothing to answer them.
Back in July 2022, the club issued a lengthier statement about their decision to keep playing Partey. It read: “We’ve confirmed that the player denies the allegations and is on police bail… There have been no charges laid and the player can fulfil his professional commitments.”
At the time, I was conflicted, weighing what appeared to be a reasonable legal position, particularly in light of the player’s denials, against the severity of the allegations and the fact that sport occupies such a powerful place in society.
There is a part of my brain that still tries to rationalise Arsenal’s actions. Had they suspended him for all that time only for him to then be cleared — as may, of course, yet happen — would that have been fair, given the brevity of a professional footballer’s career?
Might they also have been concerned about the potential legal ramifications? Last year, former Manchester City player Benjamin Mendy won his claim against the club over unpaid wages while he was facing criminal charges following allegations of sex offences. He was subsequently cleared of all charges.
But morally and emotionally, I find it difficult to accept how the club has approached this situation.
Even if you make the argument for Arsenal being wary of the legal ramifications of suspending Partey, what then can be made of their apparent desire to extend his contract beyond this summer? In April this year, The Athletic reported that the club had entered talks with the midfielder about a new deal. Given the ongoing investigation and allegations against him, this raises yet more uncomfortable questions.
Arsenal have long led the way in championing the women’s game, and have traditionally been held up as a football club that “does things the right way”. Yet for the past three years, they have acted in a manner that raises so many questions about the moral compass of the game and how it really views allegations of sexual assault towards women.
They have acted in a way that has left many fans feeling uncomfortable and conflicted as they supported their team through the highs and lows of the seasons.
They have acted in a way that simply has not felt right.
On the eve of the 2022 Women’s European Championship, I spoke to UK TV presenter Gabby Logan about her relationship with the game and she said something that came to mind when I read Arsenal’s initial statement three years ago.
Logan said: “Football reflects so many attitudes in society. Sometimes I think it reflects where we are as a civilisation in terms of attitudes and how important subjects like racism and homophobia are handled. If football treats it seriously, then it sends a really strong message.”
What message does it send when a club basically says it’s ‘business as usual’ after allegations of rape are made? Does it say they are treating them with the seriousness they deserve? Does it send a strong message to their players, staff and fans about how they feel such allegations should be acted upon?
Partey left Arsenal on June 30 when his contract expired (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Female players and members of staff at the club — including, potentially, in the medical team — will undoubtedly have to be around and interact with the player in question, as will others who no doubt will all know about the claims against him.
I ask myself how I would feel in their situation. The answer is potentially uncomfortable.
The club’s statement in 2022 said they take their “commitments and responsibilities seriously”, but their actions regarding the player we now can name as Partey suggested they did not treat the allegations made against him with the same level of seriousness.
There have been other examples of clubs suspending players and members of staff after serious allegations. Mason Greenwood was suspended by Manchester United after being arrested in January 2022 on suspicion of attempted rape and assault, with charges subsequently being dropped. Another Premier League club suspended a player in 2021 after he was arrested on suspicion of committing child sex offences. That case was also dropped.
Those two players’ club suspensions did not mean their employers were slapping a “guilty” verdict on them, but it did mean they were being seen as treating the allegations with the respect that they deserved. That they understood the implications and potential impact on the alleged victims and those around the accused. That they recognised the message their reaction sends to wider society.
It should also be noted that Arsenal are not alone in their decision not to suspend a player facing sex offence allegations.
Yves Bissouma, then of Brighton and now of Tottenham, wasn’t suspended when he was arrested under suspicion of sexual assault in Brighton in October 2021 (Bissouma was cleared of the allegation in June 2022).
Yves Bissouma played on for Brighton despite facing sexual assault allegations. He was later cleared (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
Nor was Mendy suspended after allegations of nine sexual offences against six women, until he was charged by police.
These examples only serve to reinforce the flimsy message that football — and, specifically in the Partey case, Arsenal — have sent about its attitude towards allegations of rape and sexual assault. And they do little to quash the idea that the bar for players getting suspended is placed far too high.
It’s not hard to imagine what would happen to a member of a club’s backroom staff if they were facing the same allegations. So, why is it different for a player?
There’s one answer that immediately springs to mind, and it’s not one that should even be in the reckoning when it comes to such serious claims.
Violence towards women and girls is happening in scary numbers. It’s an issue that the UK government has promised to tackle, but it’s also one that should force us to examine our own attitudes and actions when allegations are made, and the messages they are sending to those around us.
And that includes football clubs.
(Top photo: Stefan Koops/EYE4images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Scientists are just a few years from creating viable human sex cells in the lab, according to an internationally renowned pioneer of the field, who says the advance could open up biology-defying possibilities for reproduction.
Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi, a developmental geneticist at the University of Osaka, said rapid progress is being made towards being able to transform adult skin or blood cells into eggs and sperm, a feat of genetic conjury known as in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG).
His own lab is about seven years away from the milestone, he predicts. Other frontrunners include a team at the University of Kyoto and a California-based startup, Conception Biosciences, whose Silicon Valley backers include the OpenAI founder, Sam Altman and whose CEO told the Guardian that growing eggs in the lab “might be the best tool we have to reverse population decline” and could pave the way for human gene editing.
“I feel a bit of pressure. It feels like being in a race,” said Hayashi, speaking before his talk at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology’s (ESHRE) annual meeting in Paris this week. “On the other hand, I always try to persuade myself to keep to a scientific sense of value.”
If shown to be safe, IVG could pave the way for anyone – regardless of fertility or age – to have biological children. And given that Hayashi’s lab previously created mice with two biological fathers, theoretically this could extend to same-sex couples.
“We get emails from [fertility] patients, maybe once a week,” said Hayashi. “Some people say”: ‘I can come to Japan.’ So I feel the demand from people.”
Matt Krisiloff, Conception’s CEO, told the Guardian that lab-grown eggs “could be massive in the future”.
“Just the aspect alone of pushing the fertility clock … to potentially allow women to have children at a much older age would be huge,” he said. “Outside of social policy, in the long term this technology might be the best tool we have to reverse population decline dynamics due to its potential to significantly expand that family planning window.”
In a presentation at the ESHRE conference, Hayashi outlined his team’s latest advances, including creating primitive mouse sperm cells inside a lab-grown testicle organoid and developing an human ovary organoid, a step on the path to being able to cultivate human eggs.
IVG typically begins with genetically reprogramming adult skin or blood cells into stem cells, which have the potential to become any cell type in the body. The stem cells are then coaxed into becoming primordial germ cells, the precursors to eggs and sperm. These are then placed into a lab-grown organoid (itself cultured from stem cells) designed to give out the complex sequence of biological signals required to steer the germ cells on to the developmental path to becoming mature eggs or sperm.
Graphic showing the process of in-vitro gametogenesis
Inside the artificial mouse testes, measuring only about 1mm across, Hayashi’s team were able to grow spermatocytes, the precursors of sperm cells, at which point the cells died. It is hoped that an updated testicle organoid, with a better oxygen supply, will bring them closer to mature sperm.
Hayashi estimated that viable lab-grown human sperm could be about seven years away. Sperm cultivated from female cells would be “technically challenging, but I don’t say it is impossible”, he added.
Others agreed with Hayashi’s predicted timescale. “People might not realise how quickly the science is moving,” said Prof Rod Mitchell, research lead for male fertility preservation in children with cancer at the University of Edinburgh. “It’s now realistic that we will be looking at eggs or sperm generated from immature cells in the testicle or ovary in five or 10 years’ time. I think that is a realistic estimate rather than the standard answer to questions about timescale.”
Prof Allan Pacey, a professor of andrology and deputy vice-president of the University of Manchester, agreed: “I think somebody will crack it. I’m ready for it. Whether society has realised, I don’t know.”
While several labs have successfully produced baby mice from lab-grown eggs, creating viable human eggs has proved far more technically challenging. But a recent advance in understanding how eggs are held in a dormant state – as they are in the human ovary for more than a decade – could prove crucial.
In the race to crack IVG, Hayashi suggested that his former colleague, Prof Mitinori Saitou, based at Kyoto University, or Conception Biosciences, which is entirely focused on producing clinical-grade human eggs, could be in the lead. “But they [Conception] are really, really secretive,” he said.
Krisiloff declined to share specific developments, but said the biotech is “making really good progress on getting to a full protocol” and that in a best case scenario the technology could be “in the clinic within five years, but could be longer”.
Most believe that years of testing would be required to ensure the lab-grown cells are not carrying dangerous genetic mutations that could be passed on to embryos – and any subsequent generations. Some of the mice born produced using lab-grown cells have had normal lifespans and been fertile.
“We really need to prove that this kind of technology is safe,” said Hayashi. “This is a big obligation.”
In the UK, lab-grown cells would be illegal to use in fertility treatment under current laws and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is already grappling with how the safety of lab grown eggs and sperm could be ensured and what tests would need to be completed before clinical applications could be considered.
“The idea that you can take a cell that was never supposed to be a sperm or an egg and make it into a sperm or an egg is incredible,” said Mitchell, a member of the HFEA’s scientific and clinical advances advisory committee. “But it does bring the problem of safety. We need to be confident that it’s safe before we could ever use those cells to make a baby.”
There is also a question over how the technology might be applied. A central motivation is to help those with infertility, but Hayashi said he is ambivalent about the technology’s application to allow much older women or same-sex couples to have biological children – in part, due to the potentially greater associated safety risks. However, if society were broadly in favour, he would not oppose such applications, he said.
“Of course, although I made a [mouse] baby from two dads, that is actually not natural,” he said. “So I would say that the if the science brings outcomes that are not natural, we should be very, very careful.”
Unibabies (with sperm and egg made from a single parent) or multiplex babies (with genetic contributions from more than two parents) would also be theoretically possible. “Would anyone want to try these two options?” said Prof Hank Greely, who researches law and bioethics at Stanford University. “I don’t see why but it’s a big world with lots of crazy people in it, some of whom are rich.”
Others are ready to contemplate some of the more radical possibilities for the technology, such as mass-screening of embryos or genetically editing the stem cells used to create babies.
“It’s true those are possibilities for this technology,” said Krisiloff, adding that appropriate regulations and ethical considerations would be important. “I personally believe doing things that can reduce the chance of disease for future generations would be a good thing when there are clear diseases that can be prevented, but it’s important to not get carried away.”
The Dangbei DBox02 Pro projector has been debuted by the brand as a high-performance piece of multimedia equipment that’s engineered to work well for a wide variety of in-home applications. The projector is outfitted with the LaserVibe light source that’s reported to feature a single laser along with a color wheel combo that light will pass through on its way out to a vertical display surface. The unit achieves this with 2,000 ISO lumens of brightness with support for HDR10+ and HLG content, and will operate well in both daylight and in nighttime scenarios.
The Dangbei DBox02 Pro projector also makes use of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered setup capabilities including auto keystone correction, autofocus, fit-to-screen and even a resize feature to avoid obstacles.
“So, I really hope that, next season, he scores 40 goals and he gets 40 assists, and is the MVP [most valuable player] of the league! And he can, you know, keep doing what he’s doing because I think he’s instrumental for the present and for the future of the club.”
While that may be a tall order in terms of goal involvements for our super skipper, he is closing on a century of goals for United.
He currently sits on 98, one behind legendary captain Bryan Robson, and will be out to add to that tally, starting in the season opener against Arsenal, at Old Trafford, on 17 August.
(Bloomberg) — At the Mamiche bakeries in the 9th and 10th arrondissements of Paris, their famous pains au chocolat and croissants depend on an essential but increasingly scarce ingredient — butter.
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The bakery’s regular supplier can no longer provide a steady flow of French beurre de tourage, a type of flat butter used to make the pastries. Mamiche has gone searching elsewhere to ensure the steady flow of sweet treats from its ovens, but it’s coming with a cost.
Butter prices in most of the world are lingering near record highs, with little end in sight to the surge. It’s the result of a complex interplay of factors — challenges faced by dairy farmers from France to New Zealand, changes in Asian consumers’ appetites that’s spurring global demand, and commercial decisions by milk processors defending their bottom line.
The end result is more cost pressure on consumers’ favorite foods.
“When we have to change supplier, we can really see the difference” said Robin Orsoni, commercial operator for Mamiche. Other providers are charging prices 25% to 30% higher but Mamiche has to absorb the cost because “we want to make our customers happy, we need the butter.”
Around 70% of the butter exported around the world comes from two places — Europe and New Zealand. Each began 2025 with historically low stockpiles, and this supply tightness has caused prices to spike to a record, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
The roots of the squeeze can be traced back to 2022, when the price of milk in Europe peaked as inflation and fuel costs hit farmers hard, pushing dairy processors to look at the best way to maximize profits.
Butter is made by removing cream from raw milk and churning it. Once the process is complete, you are left with butter and buttermilk, the latter of which “has some industrial uses, but those are relatively limited,” said Monika Tothova, an economist at the FAO. It’s used for some cooking, to make other dairy products, and for livestock feed.
In contrast, “if you make cheese, you process the entire volume of milk,” said Tothova. Even the by-product from cheese-making, called whey, is in high demand from commercial food makers for flavoring and nutrition, or gym enthusiasts to bulk out the protein in their diets.
European Union dairy processors have making more and more cheese. As a result, the bloc’s butter production has steadily declined and is expected to hit an eight-year low this season, according to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture.
Milk production itself is also becoming more challenging. In Europe, farmers’ herd sizes are shrinking due to financial pressures, and they now face added risks to their cows from bluetongue virus, said Jose Saiz, a dairy market analyst at price reporting agency Expana. Lumpy skin disease, which can curb an infected cows’ milk yields, is also making its way into Italy and France.
Just as butter has fallen out of favor with dairy processors, consumers are developing a stronger taste for it, particularly in Asia.
Global consumption of butter is expected to grow 2.7% in 2025, outpacing production, according to the USDA. In China demand has already grown by 6% in just one year. Usage in Taiwan between 2024 and 2025 rose 4%, while in India, the world’s largest consumer, it is up 3%.
Hong Kong’s French bakery chain, Bakehouse, has been tapping into Asian consumers changing tastes. Its annual butter use is currently about 180 tons, an increase of 96 tons from the prior year after they opened two new stores, in addition to another 180 tons of cream, according to co-founder Gregoire Michaud. The firm only buys from well established suppliers — New Zealand has a top-tier reputation but China isn’t good enough yet, he said.
In New Zealand, which is a major dairy exporter and produces about 2.5% of global milk supply, butter production has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, fluctuating around 500,000 tons a year since 2020.
As in Paris, supply scarcity and high butter prices have forced Hong Kong’s Bakehouse to cycle through three different providers in just a short period – from Australia, to New Zealand and then Belgium. Now they’re potentially looking for a fourth.
Western consumers are also eating more butter, which for years was shunned for being unhealthy, as they look to cut ultra-processed foods out of their diets.
Purchases of pure block butter in the UK have grown, said Susie Stannard, lead dairy analyst at the UK Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. “Consumers who can afford it will still buy butter,”she said, but they aren’t immune from price pressures.
At the newly opened Morchella restaurant in London’s Clerkenwell district, the brown butter and bread that was so popular at its sister eatery, Perilla in Newington Green, has been replaced with olive oil.
Before the recent price hikes “you’d put a lot of butter into the pan to base that piece of fish and meat,” said Ben Marks, who heads up the kitchens at Perilla. “Now you’ve just got be much cleverer.”
Relief for consumers isn’t expected to come any time soon. Butter prices are also affected by the global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and tariff wars that have roiled every other commodity.
Amid this “very hot market,” Hong Kong’s Bakehouse is now prioritizing butter from closer providers to avoid a loss of supply, said Michaud.
Orsoni said Mamiche will absorb the higher cost of butter to keep French staples affordable for its customers, but Perilla’s Marks said it’s “inevitable” that diners will face higher prices.
The heat wave seen in Europe in recent weeks could also exacerbate the situation. High temperatures can reduce yields from diary cows, while also pushing up demand for other products that compete with butter for the fatty cream taken off the top of milk.
Tennis fans reaching for cream to accompany their strawberries as they watch Wimbledon, or workers cooling down with an ice cream in city plazas, “can only hold butter prices up,” said Stannard.
Too Much (Netflix, Thursday 10 July) opens with a montage of the kind of woman you could be, if you were a carefree New Yorker who upped sticks and moved to London on a whim. You could be a candlelit period heroine, roaming across the moors, or one of Jack the Ripper’s victims, or you could be a sturdy northern police sergeant, which leads to the slightly strange spectacle of seeing Megan Stalter from Hacks doing a French and Saunders-style parody of what looks a lot like Happy Valley.
The much-hyped new Lena Dunham comedy follows Jess (Stalter), an open-hearted American woman who moves to London to escape a broken heart. There, she falls for a messy indie musician called Felix, whom she meets when he’s playing a gig in a pub. Dunham co-created the series with her husband Luis Felber, and it is loosely based on their real-life romance and marriage.
Jess decides to reinvent her life following the decline of her relationship with the highly strung Zev (Michael Zegen). Zev has quickly moved on to an influencer, played by Emily Ratajkowski, and Jess records long videos about her feelings, addressed to Zev’s new girlfriend, which she never plans to send … but you can probably guess that they won’t stay private for ever. Following a post-breakup spell amid the matriarchs of her Long Island family home, she packs her bags and books a room on a British estate. What Jess imagines an estate to be is basically Mr Darcy emerging from the lake at Chatsworth. You can imagine the estate she ends up on when she arrives in London.
This culture-clash, fish-out-of-water strand is not the main point, though it does bubble under throughout. It offers the chance to hear British slang and idioms with new ears: if “getting a bollocking” never sounded strange to you, then it is worth considering that if you have no idea what it means in the first place, it can come across as a little smutty. I wonder if it is also the first time “oi oi saveloy” has made its way on to a Netflix series.
When Jess meets Felix (Will Sharpe, in leather jacket, lipstick and nail polish), her Mr Darcy/Mr Rochester dreams shuffle off in a very different direction. It is clear from the off that they like each other very much, but they don’t have the patience to pretend to be better people, or show each other their best sides. Instead, they come together over their flaws and oddities, finding a way to be together despite their considerable excess baggage. Too Much presents itself as a romcom, at least on the surface – Jess loves Love Actually and Notting Hill, and each of the episodes gets a romcom pun as its title – but in the end, it is an abrasive, complicated, grownup version of romance, rather than any picture-perfect illusion.
Notting Hill … Stalter in Too Much. Photograph: Ana Blumenkron/Netflix
The Bear has sparked an ongoing debate about what counts as comedy and what counts as drama, by entering itself into various comedy categories at awards shows, despite being defiantly laugh-free and deeply traumatic in almost every scene. While Too Much isn’t quite on that same level of harrowing, viewers should know in advance that it is not exactly a laugh-a-minute lolfest. Jess must slowly work out how she lost herself in her relationship with Zev, while Felix’s family are an eccentric, unreliable nightmare, and his struggles with sobriety are pressing and ongoing. You begin to hope that it’s only loosely based on real life when it delves into the grotesque, cartoonish awfulness of the English upper classes. Not even the most obnoxious of interlopers deserves to be exposed to a country house horror show in which grown women have nicknames that make them sound like horses.
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Too Much is stacked with a stupidly strong cast, who drop in seemingly for fun: Richard E Grant, Stephen Fry, Rita Wilson, Rhea Perlman, Naomi Watts, Andrew Scott, and that really is only scratching the surface. But in the end, despite being dressed up in romcom clothing, Too Much is about broken people finding love, actually, while learning to live with pain. Look out for it in those best comedy categories, 2026.
