Rishi Sunak has maintained a “classy distance” since losing the leadership election, says Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. “No smugness, no sniping, no schadenfreude.” He predicted Trussonomics would “send the pound sprawling and interest rates spiking”, and he was right. His original agenda might have been “uninspiring”, but it looks radical compared to what Jeremy Hunt is doing. Truss overdid the low-tax, free-market stuff, but Hunt is “running too far the other way”. His fiscal plan looks set to come in at about £35bn – “one of the biggest high-tax austerity hits in half a century”. As a veteran of Goldman Sachs, Sunak has the skills to “strike a better balance”. Allies say he has the most support among Tory MPs, who want a “quick coronation” with minimum fuss. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Just Stop Oil activists made headlines around the world last week when they hurled soup over van Gogh’s Sunflowers, says Ross Douthat in The New York Times. No damage was done, thanks to the painting’s protective screen. But it’s worth reflecting on what these and other green protesters say they want: for us to stop using fossil fuels, immediately. They seem to imagine the impact of this will fall only on the “greedy rich and consumerist upper middle class”, who will be forced to accept “a certain austerity”. Poorer folk, the activists reckon, will somehow experience the “post-capitalist, de-growth future” as more affordable, not less. But the energy crisis has revealed an “obvious crack” running through this “crystalline utopia”.