Justice Secretary David Lammy is under mounting pressure after two more prisoners were mistakenly released from jail. Ibrahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old convicted sex offender from Algeria, was freed in error last Wednesday, but the prison service only told the police earlier this week and he remains at large. William Smith, who was accidentally released after being convicted for fraud on Monday, handed himself in this morning. Electric vehicle drivers are likely to be hit with a new “pay-per-mile” tax in the forthcoming budget, amounting to an extra £250 a year on average. The scheme, which would charge EV motorists 3p per mile on top of other road taxes, comes amid falling fuel duty revenue as more people switch from petrol to electric. The Collins Dictionary word of the year is “vibe coding”, which means making an app or website by describing it to AI rather than writing the code manually. Others on the list include “aura farming” (cultivating a cool, charismatic persona), “broligarchy” (uber-rich tech bros) and “Henry” (an acronym for “high earner, not rich yet”).

The reason New Yorkers went for Mamdani

On paper, says Gerard Baker in The Wall Street Journal, Zohran Mamdani is the kind of Democrat who might have been “invented in a laboratory of perverted social science by a MAGA Dr Frankenstein”. New York’s mayor-elect is a socialist, an immigrant, a Muslim, the son of a film director and a professor of postcolonialism, and the holder of a degree in “Africana studies”. And the 34-year-old has done plenty to make himself an enticing target for his political opponents, saying at various times he wanted to “defund the police”, “globalise the intifada”, open city-run grocery stores and reinvent an America in which there are no billionaires. He is a self-described child of privilege who says he would arrest the Israeli prime minister if he visited the city with the world’s largest Jewish population.

Plenty of Mamdani’s policies are, predictably enough, laughable. Freezing rents (which has been tried before) would only “aggravate the housing supply problem”, and raising the taxes needed to fund “free” childcare and buses will drive out many who already shoulder the greatest tax burden. But here’s the thing: Mamdani is a “culture warrior of impeccable and deplorable standing”, but that’s not why he won. He won because he spoke directly to voters’ concerns that their lives have become unaffordable in a city where what were once basic aspirations – a decent job, a home – have become “unrealisable fantasies”. If you want to live in New York these days, and you don’t have rich parents or a job at an investment bank, tech company or law firm, “you can dream on”. Mamdani’s radicalism won’t restore the good times. But his success is a reminder that the “steady vanishing of opportunity” is coming to define politics everywhere.

🗳️📉 This is also, clearly, a vote against Donald Trump, says Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times. As were the other big election results on Tuesday, for governor of Virginia and New Jersey, where Democrats delivered similarly “crushing defeats” to their Republican opponents. This is the first major round of elections since Trump returned to the White House, and although voters in each place had their own local concerns, there is no doubt this was a chance to “register their discontent” with Washington. It’s sometimes forgotten amid the bluster, but Trump’s approval ratings are at a second-term low of 37%. For his party, the phenomenally effective vote-winner has become an “albatross”.

The infuriating and stupid public transport slogan “See it, Say it, Sorted” is far better in Latin, says Ysenda Maxtone Graham in The Oldie. Translated with the correct grammar, imperatives and participle, it comes out as the wonderfully appropriate: Vide, Dic, Rectum.

My office organised its own weeks-long version of The Traitors, says Ed Campbell in The Guardian. “I almost lost my mind.” I was one of the anointed “Traitors”, so had to spend every moment of every day lying to “Faithful” colleagues: as I warmed up my lunch in the microwave; at work drinks; to my manager. During a three-way interrogation between me and two Faithfuls, one of them told me: “You’d have to be some sort of psychopath to be able to lie like that.” I spoke about nothing else, even at home, and found myself dreaming about it. About a month after the game ended I had to take some time off work for stress. Pretty sure it wasn’t a coincidence.

How victims came to rule Britain

British politics is increasingly ruled by one group in particular, says Bagehot in The Economist: victims. In the past five years, “victims” have been mentioned in parliament 16,515 times, more than “Brexit” (10,797 times), “welfare” (9,978) and “immigration” (8,644). They received 24 shout-outs in Labour’s recent manifesto, compared to just two for “pensioners”; at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool, Keir Starmer was introduced on stage by Margaret Aspinall, whose son died at Hillsborough. “This party was founded to hear working-class people like that,” the PM said. “To look directly into the eyes of their suffering.” Labour once worked to advance the economic interests of its members. “Now it manages their emotional needs.”

The problem with politics built around victims is that it leads to bad policy. Victims terrify politicians – “they are apex stakeholders” – so normal rules for decision-making, on risk, cost, proportionality and so on, get thrown out. The result is legislation like “Martyn’s law”, named after a victim of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, which requires any venue that can hold more than 200 people to have an anti-terror plan, “even if it is a village hall”. Government inquiries have become “sprawling affairs” with victims involved at every step – by the time they are finished, those responsible have typically left office and any recommendations are dangerously late. Westminster’s victim culture also ignores the fact that state failures are “collective scandals”: Hillsborough could have happened at another stadium; Grenfell wasn’t the only tower clad in flammable material. “What should be society’s problem becomes an individual one.” This is not healthy. We are becoming an “autocracy of lived experience”, where “politicians advise and victims decide”.

When Anthony Hopkins was playing Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone’s eponymous 1995 biopic, says Ed Power in The Daily Telegraph, his co-star Paul Sorvino took him aside and told him he was making a hash of the part. “Your voice was all wrong,” said Sorvino. “Your speech patterns are way off.” Hopkins, despite being an Oscar winner, took this critique to heart and told Stone to fire him, saying he didn’t want to ruin the film. Stone immediately guessed what had happened. “Has that fat slob been getting to you?” he asked. “You don’t have to answer. I know he has. He’s a baby. Don’t take any notice of him.”

Rachel Reeves’s justification for tax rises is “almost identical” to that of Denis Healey half a century ago, says Simon Walters in The Independent. The then Labour chancellor increased the basic rate of income tax by 2p after failing to slash public spending and caving to demands for large public sector pay rises. So it’s perhaps worth Reeves considering how this turned out: things continued to go rapidly downhill, the government had to “beg the International Monetary Fund to bail out Britain”, and Healey ended up belatedly imposing the enormous cuts he had foolishly tried to avoid.

They’re merkins, says Flora Gill in Air Mail, “Kim Kardashian style”. Specifically, they’re three variations of the “Faux Hair Micro String Thong” – made by Kardashian’s $4bn underwear company Skims, which produced a viral “nipple bra” a few years ago – in “Clay Ginger”, “Sienna Black Curly” and “Cocoa Brown”. At just £34, the pubic wigs are surprisingly cheap, though I suppose you have to factor in the cost of regular waxes too. “I’m pretty sure to have the full effect you’d have to remove your real hair before applying Kardashian’s.”