The Joy of Six 1380

"Since the Truss debacle, the UK has had to pay a substantial premium over other G7 countries to borrow in the bond markets. In other words, it has to pay a higher rate of interest on its gilts than it normally would. A similar message is being sent by the stock market where, since Brexit, UK shares have traded at a huge discount to European and US shares." Simon Nixon says Rachel Reeves' misfortune is to be the teller of hard truths in a country only interested in easy answers.

Emily Kenway asks why carers are so often made to feel invisible: "To be an unpaid carer is to be deemed not credible, according to Mary, Ada and several other carers in this study. Mary feels this is especially apparent higher up the professional ladder. The community-based staff listen to her, perhaps because they see what she does for her son on a daily basis. But of consultants and doctors, she said: 'I’m lucky if they’ll even look at me.'"

"The big problem with the DfE’s campaign to improve attendance is that no-one – really, no-one: not a single person – truly believes that attendance at school is the most important factor determining an individual’s attainment or lifetime earnings. Class, status, income, connections, quality of educational provision, home circumstances, breadth and depth of experience… there are a hundred and one reasons why private schools can achieve good academic outcomes without being bound to the 190 day school year which everyone else has to operate." John Cosgrove on government's repeated attempts to improve school attendance.

Ben Cornwell reports that two of the UK’s biggest outdoor media owners have blocked a youth-led anti-junk food advertising campaign, despite its full regulatory approval and recent national acclaim.

Adam Mars-Jones surveys the writing career of Alan Garner: "Even when Garner started writing, it was hard to keep modernity at bay. It must have been unusual as late as 1960 for a dairy farmer like Gowther Mossock to get about in a horse and cart."

"You climb the stairs at Old Street station, hauling a cumbersome cricket bag into the east London sunshine. The hipsters and creatives barely give you a cursory glance, presumably unaware of what lies a five-minute walk away. Take the left bend on Old Street, veer down City Road, past some corner shops and the Bunhill Fields burial grounds where William Blake now rests, and there, through a black iron gate, you find an oasis." Daniel Gallan takes us to the ground of the Honourable Artillery Company Cricket Club.