The UK economy shrank by 0.1% in May, contracting for the second month in a row. The Office for National Statistics says the fall, which surprised analysts, was mainly driven by a drop in manufacturing and “very weak” retail sales. GPs will be told to stop issuing millions of sick notes and instead send patients to job coaches or the gym, in a pilot scheme to help get people back to work. GP surgeries in the trial will receive funding to co-ordinate with so-called “social prescribing workers”, who refer patients to non-traditional treatments such as gym memberships and gardening classes. The original Hermès Birkin bag has been bought for €8.6m, becoming the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction. The nine bidders for the luxury accessory (pictured), designed for Anglo-French actress Jane Birkin in 1985, were rumoured to include Kim Kardashian and the rapper Drake, but sold to a private collector in Japan via telephone.

The anti-America axis is a paper tiger

China, Russia and Iran have long been drawn together by their shared anti-Americanism, says Leon Aron in The Atlantic. All three benefit from embarrassing the West in Ukraine and the Middle East, and from widening the divisions between Washington and Europe. So Beijing’s response after Israel’s attack on Iran was instructive. Rather than forcefully sticking up for its supposed ally – by rushing over air defence equipment, say, or demanding an emergency session of the UN Security Council – the Chinese proceeded cautiously, refraining from an outright condemnation of Israel’s actions. The reason is simple: Tehran’s relationship with Beijing is “wildly asymmetric”.

China buys about 90% of Iran’s oil, and supplies materials essential to their weapons development programme. But its economy is around 40 times larger – Iranian oil accounts for just 10% of China’s supplies – and it does far more business with the US and Europe. So while Beijing is happy to support Tehran making mischief with the West in calmer times, it’s much less willing to do so when global stability is at risk. All this should give Vladimir Putin pause for thought. There’s a similar, albeit less lop-sided asymmetry between China and Russia, which is hugely reliant on its neighbour for both oil sales and military supplies. Given Beijing’s indifference to Iran’s fate, can the Kremlin really be confident that China will bail them out if things go south in Ukraine? The strength of the China-Russia-Iran “axis” was always overblown. Whereas Western democracies have traditionally shared a common worldview, these authoritarian regimes have little in common beyond their hatred for the West. And that can “bind an alliance together only so much”.

🛢️💥 Iran’s dependency on the Chinese has also taken one of its last remaining bargaining chips off the table, says Jesse Marks in Foreign Policy: its threat to block the Strait of Hormuz. Some 50% of China’s oil passes through the waterway, and Xi Jinping has spent years bolstering trade and diplomatic ties with the Gulf Arabs. Doing anything to upend all that is a complete non-starter.