In a world full of wedgies, are you a wedger like Trump, or a wedgee like me?
Sir Ed Davey has made more than one significant contribution to the tone of political discourse over the past year. Obviously, there's all the surfing, rollercoasting, bungee jumping and so on. There's also his use of the word 'wedgie' in relation to trade tariffs. That's some trick to pull off. Respect. Here's what he said earlier this month: 'Despite backing the US in every major conflict this century – and offering to water down our tax on US tech billionaires – we've been rewarded with the same tariffs as Iran. It's like we're meant to be grateful Trump gave our friends a black eye and left us with just a wedgie.'
This was quoted on The World at One on BBC Radio 4, which involved the presenter Sarah Montague using the word wedgie, too. Something else I never thought I'd hear. Even over where I work on BBC Radio 5 Live, where we're less squeamish about using the vernacular, Davey's wedgie-bomb came as a bit of a shock. But we soon gathered ourselves enough to hatch a plan on where we should go with the idea. My editor suggested it may be profitable to consider how mankind – and I believe we are talking about a largely male pursuit – can be divided into wedgees and wedgers. That is, those who have been wedgied and those who have done the wedging.
I should explain to those unfamiliar with this ghastly practice – one generally but not exclusively experienced in our schooldays – that a wedgie is when you come up behind someone and, unbidden, take hold of the elastic of their underpants and … Actually, let's leave it at that. If you know, you know. If you don't, be grateful.
My editor – who is called Tom Green, by the way, if you want to complain about any of this on taste grounds – is, like me, very much a wedgee. It's why we get on. The current president of the United States is plainly a wedger. I use the present tense there, not because I think President Trump is an active wedger, but because it's not a label you can shed. Once a wedger, always a wedger. Our prime minister, equally obviously, is a wedgee, and this is greatly to his credit. His predecessor, Mr Sunak, is a wedgee too. Liz Truss? Let's not go there. Boris Johnson? Most definitely a wedger.
To be clear, not all wedgers are bad. Some of my best friends are wedgers. But it's the rest of us who are on the side of the angels. Hard though it is to believe just now, it's the wedgees who will inherit the Earth.
Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
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The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Monday briefing: How the work of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira carries on, three years after their killing
Good morning. Last week marked the third anniversary of the disappearance of the longtime Guardian contributor Dom Phillips and the Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest. They were found dead 10 days later, murdered as they tried to warn the world about the Amazon's destruction. In the time since, the environmental defenders and journalists who knew them have tried to secure their legacy, through projects to train a new generation of Indigenous activists to protect their home from organised crime and industrial deforestation – and through reporting. On Thursday, as part of that project, the first two episodes of a new Guardian podcast, Missing in the Amazon, were published; the third went up this morning. The series, an astonishingly evocative and diligent piece of work, is presented by Dom's friend and Guardian colleague, Tom Phillips. For today's newsletter, I spoke to Tom about the series – how it came about, the wrenching toll and deep consolations of putting it together, and the picture of the future of the rainforest that it presents. Here are the headlines. US politics | Tensions flared in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday as hundreds of US national guard troops were deployed by Donald Trump as thousands took to the streets to protest against an immigration crackdown. Teargas and 'less-lethal munitions' were used by police to disperse huge crowds, who surrounded civic buildings and blocked a freeway. California governor Gavin Newsome accused Trump of manufacturing a crisis. Israel-Gaza | The activists sending an aid ship into Gaza carrying climate activist Greta Thunberg accused Israel of forcibly intercepting the vessel and confiscating its cargo. Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said the passengers would be shown video of the 7 October attacks. UK economy | Rachel Reeves has been locked in a standoff over the policing and council budgets just days before this week's spending review, which is set to give billions to the NHS, defence and technology. Culture | Ministers have asked the British Council to draw up spending plans which would force it to close in as many as 60 countries, sources have told the Guardian. Environment | Environmental groups have welcomed government proposals to ban the destructive fishing practice known as bottom trawling in half of England's protected seas. A few weeks after Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira went missing, Tom sat down in Rio de Janeiro with João Laet, a photographer with deep experience of the Amazon who had also known Dom, and talked about what to do next. 'We did what journalists do,' he said. 'We decided to just report, to carry on, to do even more of it. A couple of weeks later, we were back in a different part of the Amazon – and we've been doing it ever since.' The podcast has been one of the centrepieces of Tom's part of that work. Over the last three years, he has travelled thousands of miles through the jungle by helicopter, plane, boat and on foot in an effort to understand what happened, and to shed new light on the stories that the two men thought were so important. The series presents a painstaking, beautifully attentive portrait of Dom and Bruno, and the powerful investigative thread of the search for their killers; meanwhile, the story of the violence done to the Amazon by organised crime and industrial deforestation, and the Indigenous people fighting to protect it, plays out in vivid detail. 'We wanted to make sure their lives and legacies were properly remembered,' Tom said. 'I hope they'd be proud of it.' Where threats to the Amazon stand today When Dom and Bruno went missing, the far-right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro was president of Brazil, and widely viewed as having nurtured the climate in which their attackers could feel they had impunity. Bolsonaro's defeat to the leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva later that year was a genuine turning point for the Amazon, Tom said. 'Lula was accompanied at his inauguration by Raoni, one of Brazil's most revered Indigenous leaders. He appointed Marina Silva, a hugely respected environmentalist, as his environment minister. He gave Bruno's widow, Beatriz Matos, a top job in a new ministry for Indigenous peoples. He started putting resources into the environmental agency, so it could crack down on deforestation and crime. So all of that is very good news.' At the same time, he said, 'the fundamental fact is that lots of things haven't changed. Deforestation has come down massively – but there is still a great deal of destruction going on. You have a right-wing congress which is trying to undermine Indigenous rights and environmental protection. Organised crime has grown in the last few years.' And there is the prospect of a far-right successor to Bolsonaro prevailing in next year's presidential election. In the Javari valley, where Dom and Bruno were killed, Tom said 'all the activists I know still receive threats – every time I come home, I wonder if I'm going to see those people again.' He points to one bleak symbol in particular: a floating federal police base deployed to the valley, called New Era, which has subsequently been withdrawn. How Dom and Bruno's friends and allies responded to their deaths In a story published last week, and further explored later in the podcast series, Tom describes the extraordinary journey he and João Laet took deep into some of the most inaccessible territory in the Javari valley alongside members of the Indigenous patrol group that Bruno helped to found. The group, named Evu, works to train activists to protect the rainforest and rivers from poachers, fishers, miners and drug traffickers; against just a dozen members in 2021, there are 120 today, an expansion driven by the determination to secure Bruno's legacy. 'These are the same people without whom Dom and Bruno might never have been found,' Tom said. 'Three years ago, I was blown away by their skill, their dedication, their persistence. And now they're not just stepping up in the region, but exporting the model to other parts of the Amazon and Latin America.' The work is astonishingly gruelling: Tom describes joining the team as they carried two aluminium canoes on their shoulders on a hike of 100km in six days through dense rainforest. At the end of their journey, they provided the canoes – and training – to the last of their six mobile teams. Since coming back, 'I haven't been able to put a pair of shoes on for a week,' Tom said ruefully. 'My left knee isn't really bending properly. I fell in the river and lost my glasses. It's been slightly exhausting, but a privilege.' Meanwhile, a group of journalists led by Guardian global environment editor Jonathan Watts and Dom's widow Alessandra Sampaio has been at work on the project that Dom was engaged in when he died – the completion of a book called How to Save the Amazon, in which Bruno is an essential character. 'No reader should be in any doubt that these pages have been stained by blood,' Dom's co-authors write. 'The killers blasted a gaping wound in this book that is far too great for any infusion of solidarity to heal.' 'It's all part of the same project,' Tom said. 'I got my copy in Portuguese the other day. It was an incredibly uplifting thing to receive – this feeling that in some sense, Dom's mission had been accomplished.' Has the crime been solved? In July 2022, three men were charged with the murder of Dom and Bruno: Amarildo da Costa Oliveira and Jefferson da Silva Lima, who confessed to the killing but have argued that they acted in self-defence; and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, who was accused of a lesser role, but who subsequently saw the charges dropped – though he is still under house arrest pending a possible new charge. But that left the question of why. In November last year, the alleged mastermind of the attack was charged with arming and funding those responsible. He was identified in Brazilian press reports as Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, a shadowy business person in the Javari Valley who has been accused of running an illegal poaching operation, money laundering, and drug smuggling, but never convicted. Others have been charged as accessories who helped to conceal the bodies. The fifth episode of the series will examine whether Dom and Bruno's deaths were the result of a wider conspiracy. Among Indigenous activists, 'There is a frustration that it has taken so long,' Tom said. 'There's a real worry that if the two fishers are convicted, it will just end there. People want to see proof of a real inclination from the authorities to dig into whether there were more powerful criminal figures behind the murders, and what they might reveal about the region's struggle with political and police corruption in a hugely important narco corridor for cocaine going from Peru to Europe.' What has it been like to tell Dom and Bruno's story? As he worked on the series, 'I thought a lot about the fact that Dom left his house one day for what he would not have seen as one of his most dangerous reporting trips, said goodbye, and never came back,' Tom said. 'So yes, it's been traumatic. But it's been therapeutic, too, to have the time and space to try to do this story justice.' There has been a deep poignancy in spending so much time talking to people about his friend – and even the parts of his story that were very far from the Amazon. 'We nearly always talked about our affection for Brazil, and the work of reporting here,' Tom said. But as the second episode of the series sets out, Dom had a whole other life in London in the 1990s, where he was editor of Mixmag, and a passionate connoisseur of dance music. 'I was only a teenager, but that was part of my world back then too,' Tom said. 'I really wish now that we had talked more about those days.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion As he says on the podcast, a thread runs through all of Dom's life, whether going toe-to-toe with a superstar DJ in a row over a coverline in the queue for Ministry of Sound or reporting deep in the Javari valley: 'The backbone, the commitment to his ideas. When Dom decided he cared about something, or that it really mattered, he went all-in. And in the end, that was what set him on the path to the Amazon.' After being told for decades that there was no market for her work, Bernardine Evaristo is now one of the most in-demand authors. I loved this interview with her, where she talks about how she's handled being thrust into the spotlight. Aamna Mercury prize-nominated singer Gwenno sings in Cornish and Welsh. She recently visited a school in Cornwall and used music to encourage the children to see Cornish as a living language. 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The Mail leads with an investigation, under the headline 'Visa scam that makes mockery of PM's pledge on migration', while the Sun looks at the cost of migrant hotels with 'InnSane'. The Mirror leads with 'Donor blood red alert'. Australia's mushroom murder trial Justice and courts reporter Nino Bucci talks through the trial that has gripped Australia – of the woman accused of murdering three of her relatives with poisoned mushrooms over a family meal. Sign up for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett's cartoons, the best Saturday magazine journalism and an exclusive look behind the scenes A bit of good news to remind you that the world's not all bad The Scout Association has introduced a Money Skills badge to help young people gain practical financial literacy skills. Guardian Money observed members of a group of explorer scouts in London. 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Telegraph
44 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Ukraine plots fracking revolution
Ukraine is working to unleash natural gas fracking with the goal of becoming a major exporter and revolutionising Europe's energy market. In plans critical to Volodymyr Zelensky's hopes of a post-war economic recovery, ministers in Kyiv are scrambling to lure private investment and gain access to new drilling technology to access the country's vast untapped shale gas resources. According to sources close to Kyiv, officials are racing to attract 'foreign technology and highly experienced subsoil users', with a focus on unconventional shale resources in western Ukraine. The hunt for cash - as revealed by the independent news platform Energy Flux - is being conducted in parallel to the rare earth minerals deal struck between Donald Trump and President Zelensky in April, which will allow the US to exploit Ukraine's natural resources, including aluminium, graphite, oil and natural gas. The priority is to rapidly revitalise Ukraine's ailing gas sector after a gruelling winter saw roughly 40pc of production capacity taken out by a fierce Russian campaign of drone and missile strikes. The attacks forced Ukraine to draw heavily on its gas stocks, which ended winter almost entirely depleted. But Ukraine's Ministry of Energy believes it is possible to refill the country's cavernous underground storage facilities and even produce a surplus for export 'within 18 months', according to a senior government source. LNG reliance Ukraine already has some experience with advanced drilling technology for old wells and has since carried out experimental trials that 'confirm its potential' for fracking, they said. However, to unlock Ukraine's shale reserves, the country needs to attract more investment and newer kit, primarily from America. 'Development and production can be quickly developed using available gas infrastructure with connections to the EU gas market that make it very attractive,' the source added. 'Ukraine has enough deposits of traditional gas to cover its own consumption and to become a net exporter, and shale gas production has quite a profound effect on its development.' Such a turnaround would help transform the fortunes of Europe's energy markets, which remain on edge following the loss of Russian pipeline gas exports via Ukraine at the start of 2025. Refilling Ukraine's depleted gas storage – the largest in Europe, at 32bn cubic metres – is one of the main factors tightening energy markets in Central and Eastern Europe ahead of next winter. Ukraine's gas stocks are today just 7pc full compared to the EU average of 50pc. Efforts to pipe natural gas from Southern and Eastern Europe into Ukraine have also been thwarted by red tape and a lack of market cohesion. However, if Ukraine could unleash its own shale revolution and create a surplus for export, the need to keep pumping European gas into Ukraine would effectively disappear overnight. It would also help reduce Europe's reliance on costly liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from overseas. Gas-starved Europe leaned heavily on LNG after Gazprom, the Kremlin-backed energy giant, halted exports to the EU following Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Ukrainian shale gas exports, if scaled up quickly, would erase a large chunk of European energy demand currently being met by LNG, potentially sparking a sharp drop in energy prices around the world. Attracting foreign investors However, Kyiv's proposed fracking revolution hinges largely on the country's ability to secure overseas investment. Officials from Ukraine's Ministry of Energy are tapping Western diplomatic ties to find private capital funds with a high tolerance for risk to bankroll drilling and bring in technology partners. A senior government team attended the Baku Energy Forum in Azerbaijan last week in part to promote Ukraine's potential as a shale hub. Speaking at the event, one high-ranking statesman said the Lviv-Lublin geological area that straddles the Ukraine-Poland border is 'superior on the Ukrainian side' thanks to higher porosity and lower clay content, making it 'better for fracking'. The most promising prospect is the Oleska (Olesskaya) shale block, which contains an estimated 0.8 to 1.5 trillion cubic metres of shale gas resources – enough to meet Ukraine's domestic needs for decades. How much of this resource is economically recoverable is an open question. Chevron walked away from a 50pc interest in the Oleska project in 2014 before drilling could begin. Chevron's stated reason for leaving was not because of political instability or lack of resources, but rather Kyiv's failure to enact specific tax reforms necessary to enable shale gas foreign investment. Now, the Zelensky administration is moving to streamline operations and reduce bureaucratic hurdles that previously deterred foreign investors. Ownership of the Olesskaya production sharing agreement (PSA) was transferred in April 2025 from government holding company Nadra Ukraine to Ukraine's largest oil and gas producer, Ukrnafta. The move signalled a strategic shift in the country's approach to fracking, particularly in the Oleska block. Ukrnafta is a state-owned enterprise following the nationalisation of strategic industries and declaration of martial law in 2022, which remains in force to this day. Attracting significant private capital into Ukrainian shale exploration would normally be impossible under these circumstances. However, the source said there are laws in place to ensure they can be overwritten.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk invites Trump to ‘live in my house' to experience Russian war
Oleksandr Usyk has issued an invitation to Donald Trump, urging the US president to spend a week at his home in Ukraine to gain an insight into the ongoing conflict. Trump had previously asserted he could resolve the war "in 24 hours" upon assuming office. However, more than three years after Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion, a resolution remains elusive. Usyk, a former undisputed world champion in both the cruiserweight and heavyweight divisions, conveyed a grim depiction of life in Ukraine, emphasising the necessity for Trump to develop a more profound understanding of the situation. 'I advise American president Donald Trump to go to Ukraine and live in my house for one week, only one week,' Usyk, the WBC, WBA and WBO heavyweight champion, told the BBC. 'Watch what is going on. Every night there are bombs, rockets flying above my house. 'People who don't live in Ukraine, who don't support Ukraine, who haven't watched what's going on, don't understand what's going on.' Usyk, who has won all 23 of his professional contests, is currently in a training camp to prepare for a rematch with IBF champion Daniel Dubois on 19 July at Wembley Stadium. 'I worry about what happens in my country,' 38-year-old Usyk added. 'It's very bad because Ukrainian people have died. It's not just military people – children, women, grandmothers and grandfathers, too.' Russian forces launched two devastating attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, on Saturday. President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Vladimir Putin of "pure terrorism" following the strikes, which allegedly targeted civilians. The initial overnight missile and drone strikes, described by Kharkiv's mayor Ihor Terekhov as the "most powerful attack" of the war so far, resulted in at least three deaths and 21 injuries, including a six-week-old baby and a 14-year-old girl. Kharkiv was struck again later on Saturday afternoon with guided aerial bombs, killing at least one person and wounding more than 40 others. Zelensky condemned the attacks, saying: "This is another savage killing. Aerial bombs were dropped on civilians in the city – there is even a children's railway nearby... This makes no military sense. 'This is pure terrorism. This cannot be turned a blind eye to. And this is not some kind of game. Every day, we lose our people only because Russia feels it can act with impunity. Russia must be firmly forced into peace."
