The Telegraph

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More young Britons bid farewell to working on the weekends – and enjoy idle summers

💸 “‘Dear King Charles...’ I can’t really call him Chuck, can I?” Ann Kaplan Mulholland is figuring out how best to write a letter to the King requesting permission to create her own country on her estate in Kent. “‘...Can I have my land back, please?’” It’s a grand vision that the 64-year-old owner of Lympne Castle has hatched in her attempt to prevent losing swathes of her £500m fortune to the #Treasury in a very large tax bill. “The King isn’t political and I actually think he’s a very fair person. He doesn’t need the land, so won’t miss it.” The Buckingham Palace-bound letter outlines why Mulholland, a Canadian businesswoman, is vying to become the ruler of a new kingdom. Fearful of the Government’s planned tax raid on wealthy foreign residents, she wants to create a haven for billionaires and millionaires before they are “taxed the c--p out of” from April. #Labour has promised to scrap the non-dom tax regime “once and for all” in a move hoped to raise £5.2bn for the public purse by 2028-29. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ejKgN-C2

Bevis Marks’s rabbi says proposed project has caused ‘significant distress within the Jewish community’

🪖 jeremy warner writes: Beyond those who close their eyes to the lessons of history, few would seriously disagree with the proposition that military spending in Europe needs to be dramatically increased. Defence of the nation is perhaps the most important function that governments are required to perform, yet in the UK and beyond, it has become shockingly neglected; so much so that #military chiefs today question the UK’s ability to fight even a fairly limited skirmish, such as the Falklands war of the early 1980s, let alone the all encompassing conflicts of yesteryear. It cannot be stressed often enough that the primary purpose of #defence spending in any civilised country is not to actually go to war, but to act as a deterrent against those who would, or might otherwise threaten the country’s interests. The British military is still a formidable force, but it is a pale shadow of its former self. The same goes for much of the rest of #Europe. Our borders are threatened as never before in the past thirty five years, but our ability to defend them has rarely looked weaker. It is against this backdrop that #MarkRutte, Nato’s new secretary general, has begun to agitate to raise the target level for European defence spending to 3pc of GDP. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ekJ4QaVD

At this rate, we are bound to keep losing our young people to far-flung parts of the world

❌ Charlie, 15, is looking for his first job. He’s applied to a few local pubs, a pizza restaurant and some fast-food joints. He has put a poster up in the village where he lives, near the Oxfordshire-Warwickshire border, advertising his services as a dog-walker or babysitter. But his efforts to earn some money, and gain the independence that comes with it, have so far failed. His mother pays him £10 an hour to tutor his siblings at maths, but he would like to start earning properly as soon as possible. “I am always having to ask my mum [for money]. “It’s just a bit annoying, because it would be nice to have a bit of money every now and then to lean on. It would be better to be able to work a bit,” says Charlie, adding that he wants “anything that would pay decently and is accessible”. He says: “It’s just a sense of wanting a job and getting a bit of money, but no place is hiring”. Read more here ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/dGKnvy3E

Rearmament should be a priority for defence – and economic growth

💿 What was the best album of 2024? For the general public, it was Taylor Swift who spoke to the moment, no contest. For most music magazines and websites, though, Swift may as well have not existed, with Album of the Year honours being bestowed on a huge diaspora of talent, some of whom might struggle to be recognised in their local pub let alone in the pop charts. Amongst the intriguing leftfield artists acclaimed in this regard have been ethereal singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins, neo psychedelic R’n’B experimentalist Mk.gee and lo fi shapeshifting Canadian outfit Cindy Lee, a group who decline to release music via the usual streaming platforms. So good luck hearing that. Meanwhile the best reviewed album of 2024 (according to aggregator website albumoftheyear.org) was actually The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow by 86-year-old jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd. In a world where music is atomised into private listening streams, driven by a mixture of personal interests and algorithmic curation, your year in music might not have much in common with mine – or, indeed, anyone else’s. Yet, for me, there remains a sweet spot between art and commerce, music that somehow manages to cut through the noise to reach mass audiences whilst being driven by critical artistic impulses and maintaining high creative standards. Read more ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/eJmiGq6N

Moral Money: our reader doesn’t support her spouse’s windfall plans