Long lunches

Today

William Atkinson

Packed lunches are tragic

From our UK edition

Man is born to lunch, and everywhere he is eating al desko. According to research by Ocado, the online supermarket, the number of office workers making packed lunch is surging. Polling suggests that 46 per cent of professionals have started bringing their food from home more regularly over the last year. The reason why is obvious: cozzy livs. Around three quarters of those surveyed believe that buying lunch around their office has become too costly and that bringing their lunch from home helps them to keep a handle on their finances. It’s bye-bye to the Pret a Manger salad and toodle-oo to the Greggs sausage roll; bring out the Tupperware.

Saturday

Oscar Edmondson

Will there be a Tory/Reform pact?

From our UK edition

19 min listen

While both Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch are quick to talk down speculation of a pact between the Tories and Reform, listeners may be surprised to hear that around Westminster such conversations are already taking place. With every new poll, Conservative MPs grow a little more anxious that by the time they go to the polls, they will have little claim to being the main opposition – and so some sort of agreement starts to make sense. That agreement could be anything from a non-aggression pact to bringing the two warring parties of the right under one leader. How likely is it? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and Gawain Towler.

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

A lament for the foreign correspondent’s house – and his hospitality

From our UK edition

Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur Until January the foreign correspondent lived in a late-18th-century house with a vineyard, olive grove and vegetable garden close to the village centre. You’d go through a gate, then another gate, and find yourself suddenly in the countryside and being yapped at by Mary, the most spoilt and spherical spaniel in Christendom, and then the foreign correspondent himself would appear in front of his lovely old house with arms open to welcome you. Usually the first thing he would say was that he was thinking about having a drink and why didn’t he go and fetch a bottle and glasses.