Avocado

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Can Starmer and Reeves add some fizz to the economy?

If the 0.6 per cent first-quarter GDP uplift reported by the Office for National Statistics is sustained for the rest of this year, Rishi Sunak will be able to claim – as he waves goodbye – that he and Jeremy Hunt have succeeded against their naysayers in dragging the UK economy from pandemic depths back to the level of ‘trend growth’, around 2.5 per cent per annum, that used to be thought of as normal. That’s spookily in line (as is the path of inflation) with Ken Clarke’s achievement as Tory chancellor in 1996 ahead of the election that swept Blair and Brown to power the following May. How lucky

Monday

Ameer Kotecha

Is it time to say adieu to avocado toast?

Oh the avo. The fruit that launched a thousand tweets. This millennial Holy Grail has done more to divide generations than anything save perhaps Brexit. It has been three years since Australian property developer Tim Gurner became a hate figure for suggesting in a TV interview that it was not economic difficulty that was keeping millennials from getting on the housing ladder but a tendency to spend $19 on smashed avos for brunch. Millennials vented their anger in the only way they know how—by twitter tirade. Perhaps it would have been more fitting to pelt Tim with over-ripe avos for his audacity. To eat avocado on toast in public is