Hero
Michael Bublé, according to Rishi Sunak, who has been playing the crooner’s Christmas (Deluxe) album to get into the holiday mood. Despite being a devout Hindu, the PM is “fanatical about Christmas”, says Katy Balls in The Spectator: he has imported boxes of “peppermint bark” – seasonal sheets of mint chocolate – from the US, and “is even overseeing his staff carol concert”.
Villains
Britain’s top spies, who are not being secretive enough. MPs have raised concerns about all the newspaper and TV interviews conducted by the bosses of MI5 and GCHQ, and the prolific tweets from the head of MI6, Richard Moore. According to a new parliamentary report, the attention risks “trivialising” important intelligence work.
Villain
An excessively thrifty Florida shopper, who filmed herself cutting the stalks off heads of broccoli before weighing them at the supermarket. “I’m only going to pay for what I’m going to eat,” Mimi Carter told followers on TikTok. She isn’t the first American to have hit the headlines because of broccoli: in 1990, George HW Bush declared he had hated the vegetable since childhood. “I’m president of the United States,” he said, “and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.”
Heroes
Car4ukraine, a team of volunteers helping the Ukrainian war effort by revamping and donating battered British farm pick-up trucks. About 100 disused vehicles from the UK have been shipped to the country and kitted out for military use. Because they’re right-hand drive, unlike European cars, they bamboozle Russian snipers, who shoot at the passenger seats by mistake.