Rupert Hawksley

There was some confusion earlier this week when the government announced a ‘crackdown’ on betting shops, as part of its efforts to spruce up our high streets. Presumably, the term ‘betting shops’ was only being used because it is more emotive and easier to understand than Adult Gaming Centres (AGCs), which refers to those open-all-hours rooms of flashing, candy-coloured slot-machines. But that was what the government really meant, right? Sure enough, a senior figure familiar with the plans quickly assured me this was all about AGCs, as well as vape shops and barbers. Licensed bookmakers, not so much.

No one can say they weren’t warned. For years, bookmakers, punters and the horse racing industry have tried to explain, with increasing desperation, why affordability checks are dangerous and unworkable. At every turn, the Gambling Commission has covered its ears. This week it confirmed it will push ahead with intrusive financial checks on people simply trying to have a bet. This unelected, non-departmental regulator, which currently doesn’t even have a chairman or a chief executive, is telling us how we can spend our money. Naturally, Labour’s Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross welcomed the news.

After six turbulent months as chair of the British Horseracing Authority, Lord Charles Allen felt he had no choice but to walk away from the sport. The Labour peer, a former CEO of Granada Television and executive chairman of EMI, was brought in to shake up and modernise a sport wary of change – but he was unable to unite racing’s many factions. His parting words earlier this month were brief: ‘Horseracing is an amazing sport with great potential… I have met some incredibly passionate people, who believe to survive and prosper that change is needed… I wish the sport well for the future.’ He didn’t need to add that he wanted no part of it. Racing is in a deeply precarious position.

Sergeant Rob Goacher was on patrol recently when the radio crackled with a tip-off. Two men were hare coursing – chasing and killing hares with greyhounds or lurchers – in the fields near Winterbourne Monkton, a small village in Wiltshire. When Goacher arrived, a silver Subaru with the exhaust hanging off edged out of a field and accelerated through the country lanes, hitting 60mph before reaching the M4. ‘The driver then suddenly decided to exit the motorway,’ says Goacher. ‘Over a verge, through a fence, and out through the farm. The field was full of cattle, which could have easily escaped onto the motorway. Then we’d be looking at a massive pile-up and fatalities.

Right, who’s doing the washing up? It’s 6 p.m. on Christmas Day and the table, which was meticulously set for 12, is now a mess of paper hats, gravy spills and glasses – so, so many glasses. Just don’t go into the kitchen, where you’ll find, in no order at all: six saucepans (unsoaked), 12 plates, one grater, 12 bowls, three baking trays, two sieves, four ceramic dishes, one warm turkey carcass and at least 17 bone-handled knives which absolutely cannot go in the dishwasher. There are vague murmurings that someone should probably do something about it. I hate to say it, but if you haven’t done any of the basting or the chopping or the stirring, that person is you. But this is not a skivvy’s job.

Horse racing is a notoriously factional sport. The interests of owners and trainers, for example, are quite different from those of racecourses and administrators. Even for those not in the saddle, the chafing can be painful. But on Wednesday, this dysfunctional family will unite to go on strike for the first time in the sport’s history. Scheduled meetings at Carlisle, Kempton, Lingfield and Uttoxeter will not go ahead: no horses, no jockeys, no bookmakers, no punters. Racing is shutting its doors. Walk into any high street bookmaker and watch the desperate and the vulnerable feeding coins into the flashing maws of these machines; it has nothing in common with betting on horses.

Rishi Sunak found himself in hot water last week, though fortunately it was not too hot. Just the right temperature, in fact. The Chancellor was photographed at his desk with a £180 ‘smart mug’, which keeps his drink somewhere between 50°C and 62.5°C for up to three hours on the move or indefinitely if placed on its charging coaster. Very sensible, you might think; but some thought the picture was revealing. Labour MP Beth Winter was quick to point out that her mug, turquoise and shaped like a dinosaur, had cost just £3. ‘No wonder,’ Winter tweeted, ‘he said no when I asked him this week about a wealth tax.’ Sunak is not the only politician to have had their mug scrutinised as a supposed extension of their personality.