Britain’s terror watchdog says anti-Semitism is the “biggest national emergency since Covid” after two Jewish men were stabbed on the street in Golders Green, north London, yesterday afternoon. The attack, allegedly carried out by a Somalian-born British national with a history of violence and mental health issues, was claimed, without evidence, by the Iranian-linked Islamist group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, which said it was also behind the arson attack on Jewish ambulances last month. The price of oil briefly rose to its highest level since the start of the Middle East war this morning, following reports that Donald Trump is considering a “short and powerful” wave of strikes on Iran to break the current deadlock in talks. Brent crude surged past $126 a barrel before falling to around $122. A long-lost episode of The Morecambe and Wise Show will be broadcast by the BBC next month to mark what would have been Eric Morecambe’s 100th birthday. The 1968 episode, which was discovered in the estate of a former TV industry professional, features a sketch set in a nudist colony and a performance by the 1960s pop group The Paper Dolls.

Two weeks ago, says Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman, when I told a friend I’d been rattled by an attack on a synagogue where I grew up in north London, the response was puzzlement. “You didn’t grow up anywhere near Kenton,” my friend said. I had to explain that, no, the attack on the synagogue in Kenton on 18 April was different to the attack on the synagogue in Finchley three days earlier. Both of which were separate to the attack on the former offices of a Jewish charity in Hendon, and the arson attack on the Jewish Hatzola ambulance services in Golders Green – not to be confused with the double stabbing yesterday in the same area. The media often says Britain’s Jewish community “feels” under attack. “This is incorrect.” We are under attack.

The time for equivocating is over, says Brendan O’Neill in The Spectator: “a fascistic crusade is being waged against our Jewish compatriots”. When Britain’s Jewish community begged pro-Palestinian marchers to stop chanting “globalise the intifada”, pointing out that it was a cry of violence against Jews, they were ignored. When they warned that demonising all Zionists as “genocidal scum” would put a target on the backs of Britain’s Jews, they were told to stop “weaponising anti-Semitism” to silence “criticism of Israel”. This is now a moral emergency. Where is the fury over these “1930s-style” atrocities? Where are the progressive protests? Jews shouldn’t have to fight for the right to be free and equal Britons. It’s a task for us non-Jews: to call out the fashionable enthusiasm for “intifada”, the heartless dismissal of Jewish concerns, the “frothing demonisation” of the Jewish state. British Jews have long proved that they are good citizens. We Gentiles must now prove we want them to stay. “Enough is enough.”

🟢😡 The political aspect of this ugliness can be seen “in its full nakedness” in the Greens, says Nicole Lampert in The Daily Telegraph. The party’s Jewish leader, Zack Polanski, has used his heritage as a fig leaf for the “revolting hatred” driving his movement to success, allowing members to bang on about “evil Zionists” and so on. It’s unforgivable.

Vladimir Putin likes to quote Russia’s record-low unemployment rate of 2.1% as proof of a “dynamic war economy”, says Alexey Kovalev in Foreign Policy. It’s a misleading figure. The Ukraine war has made a huge dent in the available workforce: hundreds of thousands killed or permanently disabled, another million who emigrated. And many are flocking to the defence sector because they can get “draft deferments” that keep them off the front lines, leaving big holes in other industries: manufacturing was short nearly two million workers in 2025. Agriculture is losing an estimated 150,000 employees a year. The result is a bifurcated economy: a booming defence sector and a civilian economy that’s quietly crumbling.

Donald Trump is distantly related to King Charles III, says Robert Hardman in the Daily Mail. After carefully tracing both lines back, a genealogist found that the two men are 15th cousins, via their shared ancestor John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Lennox, who lived from 1490 to 1526. Lord Lennox, great-grandson of King James II of Scotland, was involved in a vicious power struggle for control over the infant King James V and was eventually defeated at the Battle of Linlithgow Bridge in 1526. After being taken prisoner, he was murdered by a rival laird known as the Bastard of Arran.

One big question with the US-Iran talks, says Farnaz Fassihi on The Daily, is who is actually in charge in Tehran? The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is still badly injured from the airstrikes that killed his father. He has had three operations, and his face and lips have been burned so severely that he can’t speak properly. I’ve even heard that one of his legs may have to be amputated and he’s waiting for a prosthetic. Because of his (understandable) fear of assassination, there are no electronics around him – no phones, no computers, nothing – so all his correspondence is written by hand, sealed in an envelope and delivered through a human chain of couriers. When I asked my sources in Iran who was really calling the shots, “no one said the ayatollah”. The answer was always “Sepah, Sepah” – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The IRGC have become vastly more powerful since the death of the previous supreme leader. They helped install Mojtaba, who fought alongside them in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and they are leading the negotiations with the US more or less independently. This is a monumental shift. What used to be an Islamic theocracy is turning into “a military dictatorship with a cleric as its leader”. That may be worse in the short term for Iranians, as the IRGC ruthlessly crack down on dissent. But the generals are more pragmatic than the ideologically driven clerics. What motivates them isn’t “death to America” but power and money. So they’re pushing not only for sanctions relief, but also for US companies to invest in Iran. Donald Trump’s claim of “regime change” clearly isn’t true. But are the people now running Iran more inclined to reach a deal than the old lot? “Yes they are.”

Once-lowly beans are suddenly “topping shopping lists”, says Jillian Deutsch in Bloomberg. Social media is full of people enjoying the protein-rich legumes in different ways: scrambled with eggs, tossed in salads, added to wraps, simmered in stews, air-fried into crispy snacks and even devoured straight from the can. Avid followers of #BeanTok credit chickpeas, cannellini beans, lentils and the like with seemingly magical powers – clearing skin, improving sleep and easing symptoms of various ailments – and the recent viral “bean protocol” challenge saw people chomping down on two cups’ worth a day, quadruple the standard serving.

Zack Polanski recently described social media as a “toxic cesspit”, says The Economist. “He should know.” The Green Party leader interacts incessantly with his followers, replying, “liking” and reposting with mad ferocity – almost a hundred times a day on Bluesky, the left-wing X alternative, alone. Many of the posts he likes are those that praise him, such as: “God how I love this man”. But he also puts his seal of approval on people trashing his critics. He has liked one post calling the Guardian columnist Marina Hyde a “total twat”, and another calling Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge a “sneering dickhead”.

It’s a robot baggage handler, says Justin McCurry in The Guardian, which will be joining Japan’s famously conscientious cargo custodians at Tokyo’s Haneda airport next week. The humanoid haulers will be introduced as a trial initially, with a view to being deployed on a permanent basis to address the country’s chronic labour shortage. Japan is struggling to handle a massive uptick in foreign tourists because of its fast-dwindling pool of workers and strict migration controls. Chinese-made androids it is, then.