Inside Britain’s National Parks; Grace;Keir Starmer: Where Did It All Go Wrong?

“The facts are fascinating, even if the tone is weird. I would happily binge-watch a four-part series on the history of the New Forest alone (Dartmoor, too, because of the ponies, and Northumberland because it’s got Hadrian’s Wall, and look, just do the rest of the 15 while you’re about it, because the past is great and the future is looking increasingly not). But it is the interviews with the people who live there that make your heart truly sing. There are the Commoners, who have forest rights and duties established 1,000 years ago, including turning out their animals to pasture there and rounding up the horses once a year for checkups in a tradition known as “the drift”, and who still have disputes settled in the Verderers’ court. I’ll take a four-part series on that too, ta.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Well I never: an episode of Grace that didn’t make me feel like jumping off a cliff. ITV’s crime drama usually features the bleakest of storylines, with people suffering horrific torments, and sometimes leaves me so miserable I want to take a long walk off a short pier. But this episode was… fine. OK, it involved a horrible case of coercive control (though that’s just an amuse-bouche by Grace’s standards) and one violent death. But the person who died was an absolute rotter anyway, so happy days.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Vera has her shabby hat. Strike sleeps in his greatcoat. Maybe you remember the permanently rumpled Frost, or even Shoestring with his straggling tie. And just one more thing … Columbo. But DI Glenn Branson is never going to have his own show, with his name over the titles — not dressing the way he does. The Brighton copper, sidekick to John Simm’s Grace, is invariably attired in a three-piece suit straight from the dry cleaners, with colour-matched accessories.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular? The basic question is easily answered by political broadcaster Lewis Goodall in his investigation of our prime minister’s historically awful approval ratings. In several elections and one big referendum, Goodall says, Britons have voted “for economic change, for material improvement in their lives”, but it hasn’t come. Starmer toured the UK in a campaign bus with “CHANGE” written on the side, yet life as an ordinary citizen has only got harder. The extent of the national disgruntlement is well known, but the programme underlines it by revealing the results of a shiny new survey – which is something documentaries of this kind like to commission because it guarantees them news coverage. Those headline-grabbing findings: a majority of respondents say Starmer should resign, that he has been too slow to make change, that he does not have a clear plan. Asked to describe him in one word, punters’ top responses were “incompetent”, “useless” and “weak”.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian