The Weekly News Review for 21st November.

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Another week in Britain, another reminder that the nation is essentially a badly written soap opera where the plotlines are devised by a committee of bored civil servants.  

MI5 warned MPs about Chinese spying attempts, which is frankly insulting to the public. If anyone deserves to spy on MPs, it’s us so we can finally discover how they manage to claim expenses for ornamental duck houses! While insisting the NHS can’t afford plasters. Speaking of the NHS, a nurse tragically died after doctors dismissed her chest pain as indigestion, reminding us that the health service is now operating on the principle of “if you’re still alive after the waiting time, congratulations, you’re cured.”  

Elsewhere in domestic absurdity, the best and worst parcel delivery companies were revealed. Spoiler: they’re all terrible. The “best” one merely leaves your parcel in a bush rather than hurling it into a canal. Britain’s proud tradition of passive‑aggressive Post‑It notes from neighbours continues unabated. And in education, a Line of Duty star declared primary school tests ‘devastating’ for SEND pupils, which is a polite way of saying “we’ve designed exams so confusing even AC‑12 couldn’t crack them.”  

Abroad, things were no less surreal. Chile suffered a deadly snowstorm in Torres del Paine National Park, killing five tourists, as nature continues its campaign to make package holidays indistinguishable from disaster movies. Meanwhile, Bangladesh plunged deeper into crisis after its former prime minister was sentenced to death, proving that politics there makes Westminster look like a parish council squabble over allotments.  

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump announced plans to sell F‑35 jets to Saudi Arabia, presumably as part of his ongoing campaign to prove that irony is dead. At the same time, he recast the Jamal Khashoggi killing as “things happen,” which is also how he presumably explains his haircut. Over in Gaza, the hostage crisis dragged on, with Israel receiving remains of hostages, while the resignation of a senior IDF legal officer over leaked abuse footage added another grim chapter to a conflict that increasingly resembles a dystopian box set nobody asked for.  

And in Europe, the Netherlands tried to ease its economic rift with China, because apparently the only thing scarier than geopolitical tension is the prospect of not being able to buy cheap cars. Meanwhile, COP30 in Brazil saw African leaders demand health be put at the centre of climate finance, which is a polite way of saying “we’d like to survive the apocalypse, thank you very much.”  

So there you have it: Britain wobbling between parcel‑based despair and espionage paranoia, the world lurching from snowstorms to death sentences, and Donald Trump reminding us all that satire is now indistinguishable from reality. Tune in next week, when presumably the UK will announce it’s outsourcing Parliament to Deliveroo, and the rest of the planet will continue auditioning for the role of “most chaotic subplot in history.”  


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