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Yemen’s Houthis claim attacks on Red Sea tankers as US launches 12th night of strikes on Iran – Middle East crisis live

Two very large Chinese crude carriers carrying a combined 4m barrels of Saudi Arabian oil are heading towards the Bab ⁠el-Mandeb strait to exit the ⁠Red Sea, shipping data shows, even as at least one Saudi vessel came under attack in the region. The ships’ attempt to transit the strait will clearly test how tightly the Houthis will impose the ⁠naval blockade on Saudi Arabia they announced on Monday. The group said they attacked two Saudi tankers with drones and missiles earlier on Thursday. The Singaporean-flagged VLCC Xin Long Yang, ‌which made a U-turn and took a ‌pause in the middle of the Red Sea on Tuesday, resumed its journey southward late on Wednesday, LSEG shipping data cited by Reuters showed. The ‌vessel was sailing past the Yemeni coast and heading to the port of Qinzhou in southern China, the shipping data showed. The Chinese-flagged VLCC Cosnew Lake was following and it was signalling it would discharge its cargo at the port of Huizhou in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, the data showed. Both vessels indicated through their automatic identification system transmitters that there were Chinese crew onboard, the data showed.

What is the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal and why is it causing concern?

The US and Saudi Arabia have agreed a landmark deal that would use American technology and expertise to establish a civilian nuclear program in the Gulf country, a move that has caused alarm across the Middle East and through the corridors of power in Washington. Much of the deal remains unclear, but concerns centre on whether Saudi Arabia would have the capability to enrich uranium domestically, and what that means for nuclear proliferation. What is the nuclear deal that’s agreed? The 30-year deal is designed to meet the “energy needs” of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, according to a statement from US energy secretary Chris Wright. Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic plan, Saudi Arabia aims to use nuclear power for some electricity generation, thereby boosting oil sales by freeing up more supplies for export. The deal would make American companies central in the development of the country’s nuclear infrastructure, while denying competitors like China and Russia a foothold in the country. The deal is thought to be worth tens of billions of dollars, and is the continuation of a plan first conceived during the Biden administration. That deal would have seen the US agree to nuclear cooperation in exchange for Saudi Arabia establishing formal ties with Israel. The prospect of normalisation between Israel and Riyadh has been derailed by the 7 October attack by Hamas, and the resulting years-long war in Gaza. The Trump administration has chosen to push the deal through without the wider agreement with Israel. Will Saudi Arabia be able to enrich uranium on its soil? The deal reportedly paves the way for the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia, but this would be contingent on a joint US-Saudi study determining such a facility is necessary. The study would run for two years, potentially leaving Donald Trump’s successor in the White House with the decision on whether to sign off on allowing domestic enrichment in Saudi Arabia. Many countries with nuclear energy industries do not enrich uranium domestically – a process which could theoretically produce highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. They instead rely on importing the fuel for reactors. Part of the US justification for going through with the deal, is that Washington would have oversight of any enriched uranium and spent fuel from reactors, ensuring they could not be reused to make a bomb. Why is it controversial? Nuclear nonproliferation groups have warned for years that such a deal could set Saudi Arabia on the path to develop a nuclear weapon. Riyadh has in the past said it would need a nuclear weapon if its regional rival, Iran, acquired one. The US is engaged in a war with Iran that is in part being fought to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear bomb or enriching uranium to weapons-grade level. US secretary of state Marco Rubio has dismissed concerns about the Saudi deal, saying the US is “not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation”. The Trump administration’s nuclear cooperation agreement was signed alongside a separate “bilateral safeguards agreement” which it said would provide for adequate monitoring. But experts have expressed alarm that Wednesday’s deal lacks the oversight and guardrails of previous nuclear agreements. Saudi Arabia will reportedly not be subject to the most rigorous monitoring from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA’s “Additional Protocol” has been implemented by dozens of countries, and was one of the requirements of the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran from which Trump withdrew in 2018. It involves inspection and verification to ensure that countries are using nuclear material solely for peaceful purposes. When the US struck a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates, the UAE agreed not to seek enrichment or process spent atomic fuel, a measure that became known as the “gold standard” for nations wanting atomic power. The Saudi-US agreement reportedly does not include this gold standard. Can this deal be blocked? Opponents have long argued that providing Saudi Arabia with a domestic nuclear program will set off a race across the Middle East for other countries to pursue similar capabilities. Israel – which is known to have a secretive nuclear weapons program – has reportedly raised concerns that the deal could launch a regional arms race. Democrats in Congress have expressed similar concerns. Senator Chris Murphy said the agreement would “set off a nuclear race in the region, further disincentivizing Iran from limiting its own program”. However, Murphy and his colleagues in Congress will probably have difficulty blocking the deal. The deal is expected to be submitted to Congress for approval in the coming days, but to block the agreement, Congress would need to pass a joint resolution and have a two-thirds majority to override the president’s veto.

‘A statement of freedom’: T-shirt slogan goes viral and book sales rocket in Taiwan after Hong Kong raids

Walking out of one of Hong Kong’s last remaining independent bookstores, hands behind her back but head held high, the woman’s T-shirt was emblazoned with a simple slogan: “I am a bookstore employee”. Escorted by police, the woman was among five people arrested during raids on two bookstores last week, suspected of displaying and selling publications with “seditious” content, a national security crime which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. Since then, the T-shirt phrase has spread far and wide on Taiwanese social media amid concern for the fate of Hong Kong’s booksellers. On the social media platform Threads, booksellers, lawmakers and activists shared the hashtag “I am a bookstore employee” to show their support for Hong Kong. Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, also weighed in, writing on Facebook: “Ideas and words should never be silenced by political pressure”. It is the third time in recent months that people in Hong Kong linked to independent bookstores have been arrested. The Hong Kong authorities have not specified what the allegedly seditious books were in the latest raids. But after the arrest, Hong Kong’s security chief, Chris Tang, said that booksellers had a responsibility to ensure their books were lawful, “just like merchants selling food have to make sure their food won’t make people sick”. All five arrested in last week’s raids have since been released on bail. The Hong Kong police declined to comment further, but reports that the offending books may have included Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China, written by NPR journalist Emily Feng, prompted a run on the book in Taiwan. The Taiwanese publisher, Acropolis Publishing, ordered an emergency reprint of 10,000 additional copies last week. Sara Sung, a senior editor at Acropolis, said some readers were buying copies as “a statement of democracy and freedom”. “They’re showing that they will not be silenced or intimidated by censorship from China,” Sung said. Chang Hui-ju, the owner of Touat Books, an independent bookshop in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, said she was completely out of stock of Feng’s book. “Before this, hardly anyone paid attention to it,” Chang said. “But right after the incident, the book sold out everywhere.” The ban ‘only made me more curious’ Another Taipei store, Kuo’s Astral Bookshop, also sold out of the book. One customer looking in vain for a copy, Wu Jia-xuan, said she was not normally interested in China-related books but that her interest had been piqued by the Hong Kong arrests. “The fact that it had been banned only made [me] more curious,” Wu said. Feng’s book examines Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ideological control over the country. One chapter, titled The Bookseller, focuses on the prominent Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee. Lam was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2015 but later escaped custody and fled to Taiwan, where he re-opened his bookstore, Causeway Bay Books, in Taipei. Lam died earlier this month and the fate of his Taipei store is uncertain: the closed-up shopfront is covered with notes, flowers and cans of beer left by his supporters. Lam’s story charts the uneasy and complex relationship that Taiwan and Hong Kong have with each other, as well as with mainland China. Taiwan has never been part of the People’s Republic of China. But Beijing has long claimed the self-governing island as part of its territory and has vowed to unify it with China. One path to peaceful unification, suggested by Beijing, is for Taiwan to be ruled under a “one country, two systems” framework, similar to Hong Kong. Over 80% of Taiwanese reject that idea. In Taiwan, politicians from the ruling Democratic People’s party (DPP), which rejects the idea of closer ties with China, have pointed to Hong Kong as an example of the dangers of what happens under Chinese rule. Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong in 2019 has been credited with galvanising DPP voters to win the election for Tsai Ing-wen, Lai’s DPP predecessor, in 2020. On Monday, discussing the Hong Kong raids, DPP legislator Wu Pei-yi accused China of “burning books”. But in Taiwan, rhetorical support for Hong Kong has rarely been matched by practical policies, such as taking in refugees. For DPP politicians, “it’s very easy to use Hong Kong as a way to frame what will happen to Taiwan if the People’s Republic of China is able to ‘unify’ Taiwan,” said Lev Nachman, a professor of political science at National Taiwan University in Taipei. But actual support has been “shallow”, Nachman said. For Chinese people, Taiwan is now the last place in the Chinese-speaking world where they can freely access books without the threat of Communist party censorship. One student, originally from Fujian province, visited Touat Books on Sunday looking for a copy of Feng’s book. She’d read about the Hong Kong raids on social media, news which kept her awake until 2am. “In mainland China, none of this would come up on your feed … It was quite a shock,” she said. “This shouldn’t be happening. I think independent thought should still be allowed – at least in Hong Kong.”

Ukraine war briefing: War on Wildberries burns two more warehouses

Ukraine has attacked two more warehouses of Russian online retailer Wildberries, the company boss said on Wednesday. Volodymyr ⁠Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said ⁠Ukraine ⁠struck what he described ⁠as logistics hubs in Russia’s ⁠Krasnodar and Stavropol ‌regions ‌involved in supplying the Russian ‌military with drone components and other equipment. Tatyana Kim, the co-founder and ⁠head of Wildberries, said a warehouse was attacked in Krasnodar, and another in Nevinnomyssk, which is in Stavropol. In Krasnodar, the regional governor said a young woman was killed and ⁠three others taken to hospital. Ukraine, whose own cities are ‌under constant attack, insists it is hitting companies ‌and infrastructure that support the Russian military. The attacks on massive Wildberries warehouses mark a new stage in Ukraine’s campaign of deep strikes inside Russia, whose military has targeted Ukraine’s logistics hubs as well as its energy system and power grid. A Russian e-commerce lobby group, Aurek, said it had asked the government to delay ‌tax payments for half a year for businesses that sustained losses from the Wildberries attacks. Coinciding with the latest strikes, Mykhailo Drapatyi, Ukraine’s new top military commander, said he had been tasked with stepping up counteroffensive ⁠actions and launching new operations inside ⁠Russia. “The president of Ukraine has set clear objectives for us: to continue and ⁠intensify offensive operations in all domains, to plan new operations behind enemy lines, to develop our military and its technologies, and to build up the capabilities of the armed forces of Ukraine.” Pjotr Sauer writes that Drapatyi’s appointment is one of the few wartime decisions in Ukraine to command near-universal support, reflecting his high standing across the country’s political, military and civil society circles, and helping to steady the political mood after days of turmoil in Kyiv. Drapatyi famously charged a tank-like armoured vehicle through a pro-Russian blockade in Mariupol in 2014. Luke Harding writes, though, that Zelenskyy has come under sustained pressure to reinstate Mykhailo Fedorov – whose removal as defence minister cascaded into the sacking of Oleksandr Syrskyi as Ukraine’s top general and the appointment of Drapatyi in his stead. Protesters are organising a demonstration on Friday evening outside Zelenskyy’s presidential office, and Ukraine’s political crisis is likely to roll into a second week, Harding writes. A ⁠Russian attack ⁠damaged ⁠an energy facility in Ukraine’s ⁠northern Chernihiv region, ⁠leaving more than ‌100,000 ‌consumers without ‌power, a regional electricity distribution company said. It added that repair work ⁠would begin as soon as the security situation ‌allowed. The ⁠MV South Star oil tanker was ⁠boarded ⁠by European Union forces ⁠after being suspected of sailing under ⁠a false flag in breach ‌of ‌international maritime law, said Kaja ‌Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat. Kallas said the move was aimed at targeting Russia’s “shadow fleet” carrying sanctioned Russian oil. Russia’s defence ministry ⁠said its forces struck the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Chornomorsk, ⁠hitting port infrastructure and ⁠vessels that it said were supporting the Ukrainian military, as well as warehouses it claimed were storing drones. The Reuters news agency said it could not ⁠independently verify the content of the Russian statement. The EU pushed on Wednesday to overcome an objection from Greece and agree a new round of sanctions on Russia to continue limiting its fossil fuel revenues. Athens is pushing for the bloc to allow one of its firms to keep on transporting LNG to non-EU clients from Russia’s Arctic Yamal facility. The 27 member states have meanwhile struck a temporary compromise to maintain a price cap on Russian oil at $44 for a week. Brussels wants to fix the oil price cap for several more months to stop Russia benefiting from price hikes caused by the Middle East war. Zelenskyy said he spoke with the US envoys Steve Witkoff and ⁠Jared Kushner on Wednesday. The Trump interlocutors have repeatedly visited Russia to listen to Vladimir Putin and his representatives, but not Ukraine. Both ⁠the Ukrainian president and the White House confirmed the telephone conversation. Zelenskyy said: “It was a ⁠good, important conversation on how to reinvigorate diplomacy and bring peace closer. Peace is needed – peace with dignity, and Ukraine has long ‌been ready for it.” Zelenskyy said he had met the US ambassador to Nato, Matthew Whitaker, in Kyiv and discussed licences for Ukraine to make Patriot air defence systems. “Production licences, missiles and everything else that is needed,” Zelenskyy said. “I am, frankly, asking for faster action and ⁠greater support.”

Zelenskyy under growing pressure to reinstate sacked defence minister

Volodymyr Zelenskyy was under growing pressure to reinstate his sacked defence minister on Wednesday, after campaigners said they would continue indefinite nationwide protests until Mykhailo Fedorov got his job back. On Tuesday, Zelenskyy bowed to public demands by firing Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. He appointed Mykhailo Drapatyi as the new head of the country’s armed forces, as part of a radical reshuffle of the top military command. But Zelenskyy’s attempts to defuse popular anger by offering Fedorov a new government role so far appear to have failed. Fedorov has reportedly turned down the post of deputy prime minister for technological development. Instead, he wants to be reinstated as defence minister, arguing that it is the only way of implementing his ambitious plan for modernising and reforming Ukraine’s army. The post is no longer vacant after Zelenskyy appointed a special forces commander, Yevhenii Khmara, as acting minister. Protesters have called for a rally to be held on Friday evening outside Zelenskyy’s presidential office in Ivana Franka Square, Kyiv. The announcement – made by prominent veteran Dmytro Koziatynsky – suggests that Ukraine’s political crisis is likely to roll into a second week. “We should not forget about the second demand of the protest – to return Mykhailo Fedorov to the position of minister of defence,” Koziatynsky wrote on social media. He added: “We must do everything possible to ensure that the government hears and satisfies all the demands of society.” One senior army source told the Guardian that Zelenskyy faced a major dilemma. “If he reverses his decision, this would be a big victory for Fedorov. It would be humiliating for the president and reveal him to be weak. But if he doesn’t, the protests will keep going,” they said. In recent months Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces have carried out a series of long and mid-range strikes on Russian territory, as well as on occupied southern Ukraine and Crimea. Targets have included oil refineries and military depots, as well as ships and oil tankers in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. Overnight, Ukrainian drones hit warehouses belonging to the Russian online retailer Wildberries, sparking large fires in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk. The attacks were part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Russia’s economy, so that it can no longer fund its war. Zelenskyy held a meeting on Wednesday with his top generals. Afterwards, Drapatyi wrote on Facebook that he had been given instructions to “intensify offensive operations in all domains”. He said other tasks included planning operations behind enemy lines, developing new technologies, and building up the military’s capabilities. Drapatyi’s appointment has been met with widespread approval. Ukraine’s former president Petro Poroshenko said the army trusted him. “I know him as a strategically minded, brave, and decisive man. He cherishes people. The Ukrainian people place great hopes in him,” Poroshenko said. One high-ranking military figure also welcomed Drapatyi’s appointment but said he faced significant challenges. “It won’t be easy,” they predicted. One was the likelihood that Vladimir Putin will bring in some form of mobilisation after elections in September, flooding the battlefield with new Russian recruits. The crisis in Ukraine’s military leadership was triggered by a generational conflict between Fedorov, a 35-year-old tech-savvy moderniser, and Syrskyi, a 60-year-old Soviet-trained traditionalist. Last week Zelenskyy said he had tried to mediate between the two sides, before firing Fedorov as a last resort. In a valedictory post, Syrskyi defended his record, which includes defending Kyiv and Kharkiv in the early weeks of Russia’s 2022 invasion. He said Ukraine had retaken more than 700 sq km (270 sq miles) of Ukrainian territory this year and said that he had created a separate drone branch of the armed forces – the first of its kind in the world. “I am handing over to my successor an army that is not only holding the defence but is also on the offensive – with initiative, with structure, with people who know how to beat the enemy,” he said. He added that he sincerely hoped the offensive would continue, adding: “Everything is in place for this.” As part of his shake-up, Zelenskyy said ⁠major general ⁠Ihor Skybiuk would replace ⁠Andrii Hnatov as the head of ⁠the general staff. ‌The president described Skybiuk as a “highly experienced officer who defended Ukraine shoulder ‌to shoulder with the new commander-in-chief.” Russian bloggers have acknowledged that Drapatyi is a formidable opponent. “He’s smart, strong, and hates Russia,” one remarked. They also noted that he had risen from battalion commander to head of the armed forces – a career which is practically impossible in Russia, where promotions are decided on the basis of connections and “intrigue”. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Drapatyi’s appointment would not alter the situation on the frontline. “I don’t think this will lead to any changes,” Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Moscow has no intention of stopping its full-scale offensive, which has lasted for nearly four and a half years.

Mykhailo Drapatyi: Ukrainians hope new commander will end army’s ‘Soviet culture’

Through a haze of smoke, a lone Ukrainian armoured vehicle suddenly burst into view. The BMP-2 accelerated towards a barricade of tyres and debris, smashing through it in seconds as protesters scattered. Behind the controls, on the chaotic streets of Mariupol on 9 May 2014, was a little-known officer named Mykhailo Drapatyi. The footage became one of the defining images of Russia’s first attempt to seize eastern Ukraine, and made Drapatyi one of Ukraine’s military heroes. Twelve years later, he has the top job. On Tuesday night, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, named the 43-year-old major general as the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, putting him at the head of the military as Kyiv tries to shift the momentum of the war. The appointment was one of the few wartime decisions in Ukraine to command near-universal support, reflecting Drapatyi’s high standing across the country’s political, military and civil society circles, and helping to steady the political mood after days of turmoil in Kyiv. Days earlier, thousands of demonstrators had taken to the streets after the dismissal of the popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had clashed with the then commander-in-chief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, over the conduct of the war. Drapatyi’s appointment is likely to be welcomed by many of the protesters, particularly after Drapatyi publicly backed Fedorov in his dispute with Syrskyi. “Society expected change,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies. “It’s not only about changing how the war is fought or how the battlefield is managed. We also needed to restore confidence at home after the protests and return the focus to managing the war.” Drapatyi belongs to a younger generation of Ukrainian commanders formed by more than a decade of fighting, and built his reputation on the frontline. Supporters say he took up drone warfare early, and pushed authority down to junior officers and expected them to answer for their own decisions. Perhaps more importantly for many Ukrainians, he represents a break with the Soviet-style command culture soldiers associated with Syrskyi, whom critics accused of relying on costly frontal assaults and spending soldiers’ lives too freely. “[Drapatyi] is a critic of Soviet-style thinking and micromanagement, and he recognises the problems with lying inside the military,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Bielieskov described Drapatyi as “humane and open to dialogue” – qualities he said were unusual among Ukraine’s senior military leadership. He said Drapatyi commanded respect among both career officers and those who joined the military after 2022, because he had risen through the ranks on merit and understood the realities of the battlefield. Drapatyi’s military career began after graduating from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Troops in 2004, when he joined the 72nd Mechanised Brigade. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Drapatyi helped halt the Russian advance towards Kryvyi Rih and played a key role in the liberation of Kherson. As Moscow regained the initiative, he was repeatedly dispatched to Ukraine’s most difficult sectors, stabilising the front around Pokrovsk before eventually being appointed commander of the joint forces. Drapatyi has also been unusually outspoken about the need to reform the army’s internal culture. In a social media post last year, he criticised what he described as “an atmosphere of fear, lack of initiative, [and] imperviousness to feedback”, arguing that such attitudes undermined the military’s effectiveness. After a Russian missile strike on a training ground killed dozens of soldiers under his command, Drapatyi publicly accepted responsibility and offered his resignation rather than shift the blame on to subordinates – a gesture that won him widespread admiration and reinforced his reputation as one of Ukraine’s most accountable commanders. “President Zelenskyy made the best possible choice,” said the Ukrainian military analyst and veteran who writes under the pseudonym Tatarigami. “It will take time for changes to take effect. But I know many soldiers have renewed hope for change, and that is very important for morale.” Analysts warn, however, that expectations may have run ahead of what the job allows. Drapatyi is expected to improve battlefield management and the army’s day-to-day functioning. But many of Ukraine’s most pressing wartime challenges lay beyond the authority of any commander-in-chief, said Bielieskov. Long-running tensions between the defence ministry and the general staff remained unresolved, while the politically fraught issue of mobilisation reform continued to weigh on the war effort, Bielieskov said. “There is a risk that in six months he will be blamed for problems he cannot fully control. Many of the biggest challenges facing Ukraine lie outside his mandate.”

Geoffrey King obituary

My father, Geoffrey King, who has died aged 82, was a prolific research scientist whose papers on geophysics have been cited more than 30,000 times. His most influential contribution was a 1994 paper, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, that revolutionised earthquake forecasting. After early work at Cambridge University, he moved to the US in 1987 to work at the US Geological Survey in Colorado and then in 1990 to France, where he spent 20 happy years as a research professor at the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris. He became a naturalised Frenchman and greatly enjoyed telling me how much better France was than the UK. Born in Kampala, Uganda, Geoffrey was one of the four children of Peggy (nee Wells) and Basil King, both British geologists. Basil was working with the Uganda Geological Survey mapping the Rift Valley. When Basil was appointed to the staff of Glasgow University, the family returned to the UK. Geoffrey went to school in Glasgow, a city he adored, and then Haberdashers’ boys’ school in Elstree, Hertfordshire. There his final school report ominously said, “[Geoffrey] must appreciate that the future is shaped in the present: it would be a great pity if his ambitions were not realised through a want of determined application.” But at Durham University, my father found himself, albeit by way of all the exciting new freedoms the 1960s offered. He loved ideas and exploring the new; asking questions was exciting, questioning orthodoxy essential. He went on to gain a first in applied physics and then a Cambridge PhD spent in a disused railway tunnel in Yorkshire designing better instruments to record earthquakes. Geoffrey and his father may remain the only people to have had a (terrible, but scientifically accurate) poem published in the scientific journal Nature. About plate tectonics, it appeared in 1971 – the opening lines read “They put a girdle around the Earth/And named it the Worldwide Rift/It helps explain the ocean floor/And Continental Drift”. The work possibly closest to his heart came later, when he explored how seismically active landscapes gave early humans a survival advantage – the cliffs and rocky features provide natural places to hide, hunt and farm. When he left the UK in the 1980s, in part, this was disgust at the Thatcher government’s policies on tertiary education. I also suspect he annoyed his stuffier academic colleagues, who tried to get him to stick to orthodoxy or – even worse - do some administration. As a personality, he was mischievous. As a father, he was a whirlwind - fun and always a little rebellious. He adored socialising – being among like-minded people from a range of disciplines was a joy. From his flat in Paris on the right bank of the Seine, he hosted large dinner parties full of wine, cheese and rabbit stews made in an enormous slow cooker. Last year, he told me with conviction: “I’ve had an amazing life.” Geoffrey and my mother, Anna, separated when I was young. He is survived by me, three grandchildren, Esmé, Juno and Benedict, and his younger twin siblings, Peter and Diana.