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Back to the White House If Donald Trump wins on 6 November, he will be the first US President to serve two separated terms since Grover Cleveland, who was president between 1885-89 and 1893-97. Cleveland actually won a higher share of the popular vote in the 1888 election, but lost to Benjamin Harrison in the electoral college after an election fought on the issue of trade tariffs. Cleveland’s wife Frances was confident she would return to the White House, reputedly telling her staff to keep things in good order for when they return four years to the day. So it proved – Cleveland won the 1892 election easily.

Still afloat Transport Secretary Louise Haigh nearly lost Britain an investment in an expansion of London Gateway docks by calling P&O  a ‘rogue operator’ and imploring us all to boycott its ferries. The company, owned by DP World since 2006, was once considered by the UK government to be the most trustworthy shipping line around. As the Peninsula Steam Navigation Company, it built its reputation on a contract awarded by the Admiralty in 1837 to carry mail to Spain and Portugal. Three years later it was also awarded the contract to carry mail to Egypt, adding the name ‘Oriental’ to its name. By 1914 it was carrying mail to India.

Farewell, Chagos The government announced that it would hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. There are 13 other British Overseas Territories, only ten of which have a permanent population. The most populated are: Cayman Islands 78,554 Bermuda  62,506 Turks and Caicos 38,191 Gibraltar  33,701 British Virgin Islands 31,758 – Pitcairn Island is the only British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean, which has been integral to the claims that, even now, the sun never sets on the British Empire – even if there is an overlap of just 20 minutes between sunrise in Diego Garcia and Pitcairn Island in June. – With the Chagos Islands gone, the sun will begin to set on the British Overseas Territories.

What the heckler No party conference would be complete without a heckler or two, but where did the term come from? A heckle was originally a tool for combing flax or hemp, and a heckler someone who worked with such a device. The term was first applied to politics in the 1820s when the notoriously militant hecklers of Dundee would disrupt political meetings. Their efforts did not, however, ultimately save their jobs when the process of heckling was mechanised. Home truths How many people work from home (WFH)? – Last year, 16% of the workforce reported WFH exclusively, while 28% said they were on hybrid working. – In spite of WFH’s association with Gen Z,  16- to 24-year-olds were least likely to be working from home.

The first nimby Who coined the term ‘nimby’?  — The expression, from ‘Not In My Backyard’, entered the political sphere in Britain in 1989 when it was used by the then environment secretary Nicholas Ridley to describe people who were in favour of house-building in general, just not near where they lived. He was later ridiculed when it emerged that he had objected to a development next door to his own Gloucestershire home.  — But the term originated around a decade earlier in the United States, when it was applied to people who were opposed to the dumping of nuclear waste near their homes.

Media interest This week The Spectator was acquired by Old Queen Street Media for £100 million, around five times its annual turnover. How does that compare with other media valuations (also as a multiple of revenue)? Date / Title / Valuation Aug 2010 / Newsweek / 0.000000006 Feb 2011 / Huffington Post / 10.0 Aug 2013 / Washington Post / 0.4 Jul 2015 / Financial Times / 2.5 Aug 2015 / The Economist / 2.8 Nov 2016 / Buzzfeed / 6.8 Jul 2017 / Vice / 8.1 Oct 2018 / Time / 1.1 Mar 2021 / New Scientist / 4.1 Aug 2021 / Politico / 5.0 Jan 2022 / The Athletic / 8.5 Jun 2022 / New European / 3.4 Sep 2024 / The Spectator / 4.

The art of politics Keir Starmer moved a portrait of Lady Thatcher from one room at 10 Downing Street to another because he found it ‘unsettling’. Some more possibly unsettling artworks that have hung at No. 10: — ‘More Passion’, by Tracey Emin, featuring the words ‘More Passion’ in neon, was installed by David Cameron in 2011. In 2022 Emin wrote on Instagram about her unhappiness that it was still there after the revelation of Boris Johnson’s lockdown parties. His ‘behaviour and lack of contrition’, she said, were ‘bizarre’. — Annabel’s – a series of lino cuts depicting Sloanes revelling at the Mayfair nightclub in the hedonistic mid-1980s – also hung in Downing Street during Johnson’s premiership.

Gold standard The Paralympics were instigated in 1948 and first held alongside the Olympics in Rome in 1960. But disabled athletes were competing in the Olympics long before that – notably George Eyser, a German who settled in St Louis, USA. That he had lost a leg after being run over by a train and wore a wooden prosthetic did not stop him taking up athletics and gymnastics. When the Olympics came to his city in 1904 he won three golds: in the parallel bars, long horse vault and 25ft rope climb. He won three other medals, on the pommel horse, horizontal bars and in a team event. He also competed in the triathlon, which in those days consisted of a 100m run, the long jump and shot put – but came last. Ship shape How dangerous is it at sea?

Grand tours When was there last a genuine British royal tour of Colombia? While the late Queen never visited the country, the then Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall spent several days there in October and November 2014. They visited the Peace and Reconciliation Centre in Bogota, and Charles attended a conference on the ‘Health of the Oceans’. The last working royal to visit was Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, last November, when she attended United Nations events tackling violence against women and girls. Burning question Which European countries are most affected by forest fires? Average percentage of land area burned each year: Portugal 1.02 Greece 0.38 Cyprus 0.3 Croatia 0.24 Italy 0.19 Spain 0.16 Bulgaria, Romania 0.

SS-GB The car company Jaguar said it won’t make any new cars for a year as it re-invents itself as an electric-only car company. For a long time the automatic choice of stockbrokers in the ‘gin and Jag belt’, the company had beginnings that were less luxurious. It was founded in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company to make sidecars for motorbikes. It produced its first car, a two-seat open tourer, in 1935, by which time the company was known as SS Cars. Remarkably, it retained this name almost entirely throughout the second world war until, to escape associations with the Nazis, it was renamed Jaguar – a brand name it had previously used on sidecars. Info wars Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson wants children to be taught how to spot misinformation online.

Deal or no deal Have public sector workers had a worse deal in recent years than private sector ones?  – Between 2007 and last year mean public sector pay declined by 0.9% in real terms, while mean private sector pay rose by 4%. However, for most of that time public sector workers were ahead of private sector ones. It was only after high inflation took hold in 2022 that public sector workers fell behind. – Public sector workers at the lower end of the pay scale have done relatively much better. Those at the 25th income percentile have seen incomes increase by 16% in real terms since 2007. Those at the 75th percentile have seen incomes fall by 8% in real terms. Men’s mean income fell by 11% in real terms, women’s rose by 3%. – Since 2010, nurses (-6.

Hole lot of history What was the original black hole? Although the term has been in use since the 1960s for a collapsed star from which no light can escape, its origins lie two centuries earlier with the Black Hole of Calcutta. In 1756 the East India Company was seeking to reinforce its fortifications at Fort William in the city. When the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, heard about it he raised an army of 50,000 men and, with the aid of 500 elephants, marched on Fort William. While most of the British fled to ships in the harbour, 146 were rounded up and imprisoned in a hole measuring 14ft by 18ft, in 40°C temperatures. Only 23, it was recorded, came out alive – although some now doubt that so many could have been fitted into such a space.

1968 again An incumbent who drops out of the race for re-election and a candidate who gets shot; this year’s US presidential election bears similarities to that of 1968. Lyndon Johnson had won the 1964 election by a landslide and was expected to win another term. But in April 1968 he withdrew from the race, under pressure over the Vietnam war and his own failing health. Vice president Hubert Humphrey was immediately touted as Johnson’s successor, although Robert Kennedy put up a strong showing in the primaries before being shot soon after winning the nomination for California. He died a day later. Less remembered about the 1968 election is how close Ronald Reagan came to being the Republican nominee – 12 years before he eventually succeeded.

Rain or shine Has a wet St Swithin’s Day (15 July) ever been followed by 40 wet days or a dry one by 40 dry days? – Since 1861, according to the Met Office there is not a single instance of the legend being literally true in England. However, the late meteorologist Philip Eden did record a near miss in 1995 when only two of the 40 days following a dry St Swithin’s Day, 15 July, were wet at his home in the Home Counties.  – In 1976 there were also just two wet days in the same period. However, in that year 15 July had seen thunderstorms over much of southern England – a rare wet day in an otherwise parched summer. Dangerous politics Which are the most deadly countries in which to be a political leader?

Canada’s Reformation This general election has been likened to the Canadian general election of 1993, when the Conservative party collapsed from 169 seats (a majority) to just 2 as its vote was split by a new party called the Reform party of Canada. Did it prove to be an extinction event? Neither party prospered in the following two elections: in 1997 the Conservatives won 20 seats and Reform 60; in 2000 their respective totals were 12 and 66. In 2003, however, they merged, with Reform leader Stephen Harper becoming leader of the combined party, known as the Conservative party of Canada. It won 99 seats in 2004. In 2006 it gained power as a minority government with 124 seats (out of 308). Harper became prime minister and remained so for nine years.

Close encounters The last time a parliamentary election in Britain was tied was in 1886 in Ashton-under-Lyne, when Liberal and Conservative candidates both won 3,049 votes. As was the practice at the time, the returning officer was allowed a casting vote, and he opted for the Conservative, John Addison. If it happens again (which won’t be in Ashton-under-Lyne, where Angela Rayner has a majority of 4,263) the outcome will be decided by random means such as drawing straws – as happened in a 2017 Northumberland council election.  – The closest margin in modern times was in North East Fife in 2017 when the SNP candidate Stephen Gethins won by two votes.

Made manifest What was in the first manifesto? The word ‘manifesto’ is first recorded as being used in English in a 1620 translation of the History of the Council of Trent – the series of meetings held by the Catholic Church between 1545 and 1563 in an attempt to stem the rise of Protestantism. Among the measures proposed was a ban on the sale of indulgences, an insistence that bishops must be resident in the diocese they served, a prohibition on concubinage and a ban on duelling. More controversial was a ban on divorcees marrying while their former spouse was still alive – including an innocent party whose spouse had been unfaithful. Win win Which political parties won the most seats in last week’s European elections?

TV clashes The concept of a televised election debate is often believed to have begun with the one held between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon before the 1960 US presidential election – an innovation not repeated until 1976. (The first televised election debate in the UK didn’t take place until the 2010 general election.) Yet its history can really be traced back to 4 November 1956 when, days before Americans were invited to choose between President Eisenhower and Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson II, the CBS News show Face the Nation held a half-hour debate between Eleanor Roosevelt, representing the Democrats, and Margaret Chase Smith, representing the Republicans.

Halfway points Rishi Sunak told us we would have an election in the second half of the year, and we will have one on 4 July. When, exactly, is the halfway point of 2024? – There are 366 days in 2024, so we will be halfway through after 183 of them. That brings us to midnight at the end of 1 July, a day later than many might assume. – However, there is also the effect of daylight saving, which takes a hour away from March and puts it in October, shifting the halfway point of the year forwards by an hour to 1 a.m. on 2 July. Only two days of campaigning plus the voting itself will therefore fall in the second half of the year. – In 2019, 21% of people had a postal vote; if this is repeated a fifth of the population will be voting in the first half of 2024.

Crime without borders How many nations are signed up to the International Criminal Court? – 124 signed the Rome Statute in 1998 and ratified it. – 31 have signed it but never ratified it (includes Iran, Thailand, Ukraine). – 2 (Philippines, Burundi) ratified it but have subsequently withdrawn. – 4 signed the statute, never ratified it and have since withdrawn (US, Russia, Israel and Sudan). – 41 have never signed (including China, India, Turkey).  Chopper cropper How dangerous is it to fly by helicopter as opposed to fixed-wing aircraft? It is hard to find comparable global statistics, but the National Transport Safety Board keeps figures for the US: – In 2022 there were 7.2 accidents for every 100,000 hours flown by helicopter, of which 1.