The King rebranded the Anglo-French Entente cordiale as the “Entente amicale” in his speech honouring Emmanuel Macron at last night’s state banquet in Windsor Castle. Earlier in the day, the French president told parliament the UK and France were dangerously dependent on the US, encouraged Britain not to “stay on the sidelines” of Europe, and promised the two countries’ “best ever co-operation” on immigration and defence. Thousands of cases that would typically be heard in front of a jury should be decided by judges alone, according to recommendations by a former senior judge. Tasked with designing proposals to reduce the backlog of cases in criminal courts, Brian Leveson suggested judge-only trials for cases such as fraud and bribery, saying it would make justice at least 20% faster. The first malaria treatment for young children has been approved for use, with the soluble cherry-flavoured tablets set to be rolled out in African countries within weeks. Until now, infants have been treated with versions formulated for older children, risking overdose.

No wonder Democrats are backing radicals

The strident left-winger Zohran Mamdani had a good line during his successful campaign for the Democratic nomination for New York mayor, says Gerard Baker in The Wall Street Journal. “If you agree with me on nine out of 12 issues, vote for me,” he would say, echoing the city’s former mayor Ed Koch. “Twelve out of 12? See your psychiatrist.” Now, some might argue that agreeing with just two or three of his policies would warrant a visit to a shrink. “Doctor, I keep having these thoughts about city-operated grocery stores and globalising the intifada. Can you help?” Yet those dismissing Mamdani’s socialist radicalism as evidence of Democrats’ “growing irrelevance and unelectability” have it all wrong.

When your opponents make a radical shift that goes down well with voters, political parties have two options. They can accept the “new electoral reality” and try to offer a less extreme version of the other side, or “reject the revolution” altogether and push their own radical solutions. The Democrats appear to be plumping for the latter. And who can blame them? They’ve watched Donald Trump enjoy huge electoral success by capitalising on “the easy appeal of radical ideas”. And the Republicans can hardly talk about economic innumeracy when their own numbers don’t even begin to add up – if city-run grocery stores sound bonkers, how about running larger and larger deficits to the point where the government spends more on debt interest payments than on national defence? Mamdani is tapping into the same popular discontent that elevated Trump: the cost of living, widening inequality and so on. When the next downturn comes, many voters may be unable to resist the “siren song of socialism”.

Last night’s state banquet in Windsor Castle was a distinctly Anglo-French feast, says Rebecca Russell in the Express. Guests were served English sparkling wine made by the French Champagne house Taittinger and the newly created “L’entente” cocktail – a mix of English gin, French Pastis and lemon curd, garnished with dried French cornflowers and English roses. (The other wines were all French.) The menu, partially designed by French chef Raymond Blanc, included summer vegetables from his garden at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire, followed by organic chicken from the Rhug Estate in North Wales, served with Norfolk asparagus and tarragon cream. Pudding was an iced blackcurrant parfait on a blackcurrant-soaked sponge with elderflower jelly. Magnifique.

Scarlett Johansson has become Hollywood’s most bankable star, says The Independent. The early box office success of the 40-year-old’s latest movie, Jurassic World: Rebirth, takes her filmography’s worldwide box office takings to $14.8bn, narrowly ahead of her Marvel stablemates Samuel L Jackson ($14.6bn), Robert Downey Jr ($14.3bn), Zoe Saldaña ($14.2bn) and Chris Pratt ($14.1bn). The only non-Marvel stars in the top 10 are Tom Cruise, Vin Diesel and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The actor with the highest takings per film is Harry Potter star Emma Watson, whose 16 movies average a whopping $580m. See the full list here.

It’s absurdly early to write off Starmer

I feel “a bit of a chump” writing this, says Daniel Finkelstein in The Times, but people need to give Keir Starmer more time. I never thought electing this Labour government was a good idea – they didn’t seem to know what they wanted to do, and the idea that merely getting rid of the “admittedly chaotic and played out” Tories would magically banish all scandal and incompetence seemed “unlikely in the extreme”. But it is simply “preposterous”, after barely a year, for everyone to be writing the PM off as “doomed, finished, a total failure”. The idea that a new government can change everything overnight ascribes to politics an “instant transformative power” that it simply doesn’t have.

The core of the problem is that we seem to believe “everything in the country is the responsibility of government”, and can easily be put right by government. If we think the country is “broken” – a “vast and glib exaggeration” – then it must be down to the government, rather than all of us. Here’s an odd thought: if we don’t have as much money as we would like, as individuals or as a nation, then maybe it’s at least partly because we (you, me, companies, institutions) aren’t investing enough, or studying enough, or inventing enough or saving enough. Government can help with these things, but it doesn’t have a magic wand. And the things politicians can help with don’t happen overnight: houses take time to build, as do diplomatic ties, increased growth rates and immigration controls. In any case, most voters pay scant attention to Westminster until the few months leading up to an election, which could still be four years away. In the meantime, absolutely anything could happen. Let’s wait and see.

After Owen Jones put in a particularly frenetic performance on Piers Morgan Uncensored last week, an X user posted a clip in which a frantic Jones knocks over his water, and Morgan brushes his nose and asks if his guest is alright. “The secret ingredient,” commented another user, “must be a white powder.” To which JK Rowling replied: “Well, he is known as Talcum X.” The Guardian writer has since taken to his blog to issue a 1,300-word screed against the Harry Potter author, claiming the jitteriness is down to his ADHD medication. Poor chap. Just last week, says Popbitch, he was dancing at Glastonbury, “shirtless and gurning the night away”.

To The Times:

Those complaining about the possibility of cricket balls hitting them or their property might consider the example of Sir William Worsley, who captained Yorkshire County Cricket Club in the 1920s. He gave a monetary reward to any batsman who broke his library window in Hovingham Hall, thus encouraging local talent.

Ann Gray
Beverley, East Riding

It’s a tongue-in-cheek advert posted on X by Kerala’s tourism board, says International Intrigue, mocking a British fighter jet that has been stuck in the southern Indian region for three weeks. The F-35B made an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport on 14 June after running into bad weather, and a technical snag prevented the £80m aircraft from returning to the HMS Princess of Wales. Fourteen engineers have now been flown over from the UK to try to fix the stranded plane, which has apparently become a “minor local attraction”.