numbers as low as this,” says Peter Walsh of the Migration Observatory, a think-tank. Funding from Britain has enabled France to put almost 1,000 officers on the coast. Increasingly they stop boats that are already in the water, with some migrants on board. On the other side of the channel, the Home Office claims that British officers were responsible for 1,138 “disruptions” of smuggling operations in the first quarter of this year (through arrests, asset seizures and the like). It was the highest quarterly tally for at least three years. More assertive policing appears to have forced smugglers away from the beaches around Calais and Dunkirk, where many migrants camp. Utopia 56, a French organisation that assists migrants in distress, says that boats have recently departed from as far away as Yport in Normandy, almost 200km from Calais. Smugglers load boats in a rush, before the police can stop them. “The departures are more and more chaotic,” says a member of the group. Yet the best indicator that smugglers are struggling would be a rise in the price of crossings. Of that there is little sign. Court cases, undercover journalism and police reports all suggest that asylum-seekers pay about €1,500 ($1,700) for passage, as they have done for the past few years. Ever
adaptable, smugglers have started using bigger boats. On August 3rd one carrying 173 people set off, only to catch fire (the migrants were rescued). Mr Walsh thinks that two other changes may have deterred asylum-seekers. Last September the Home Office suspended “family reunion” procedures, under which refugees could bring spouses and children to Britain. That probably made the country less attractive: illegal migration is so dangerous that men often travel alone, assuming they can send for their families later. A comparative study by Jan-Paul Brekke of the Norwegian Institute for Social Research and others suggests that stringent family policies suppress applications. Britain looks at asylum-seekers with a harder eye, too. A few years ago it initially accepted a far higher proportion of claims than eu countries did. That is no longer true (see chart 2). In 2023 Afghans were almost always given protection: acceptances outnumbered refusals by almost 90 to one. Today Britain rejects more Afghans than it accepts. Many appeal successfully, and in practice it is hard to deport anybody to Afghanistan. But word may have got around that Britain tends to say no. Even more important changes have been made overseas. The eu has tightened its borders, not least by cutting deals with transit countries in north
Africa. According to Frontex, the border agency, irregular crossings dropped from 380,000 in 2023 to 178,000 in 2025. Crossings in the first half of this year were 37% lower than in the first half of 2025. There are simply fewer asylum-seekers available to smugglers in northern France. In this respect, as in so many others, Britain is part of Europe.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/the-english-channel-is-quieter-than- usual-why
Millions play padel. Will anyone watch it? Britain is a test case Aug 6th 2026 AS WIMBLEDON’S manicured lawns take a break after last month’s tennis championships, London is playing host to a tournament for a newer racket sport. Padel, a hybrid of tennis and squash, has backers who hope to take it into the big league. The London leg of Premier Padel, the Qatar-funded professional circuit, on August 4th-9th is one of 26 elite tournaments in the calendar and the first to be held in Britain. Padelistas from 15 countries (the leading players are Spanish and Argentine) are competing for a share of the €479,000 ($550,000) prize pot. “It’s the right moment for a tournament in London,” says Luigi Carraro, the president of the International Padel Federation (FIP). Padel is one of the fastest-growing sports in Britain. About 1m people have played it at least
once in the past year, according to the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), which governs padel in Britain—up from 15,000 in 2019. The sight of brightly coloured padel courts encased in glass is increasingly familiar: in 2020 Britain had 87 of them; now it has over 2,000. Britain’s boom is part of a global one: padel has 35m players in 150 countries, according to the FIP. After starting in Mexico in 1969, the sport took off in Spain and Argentina before spreading across Europe and South America. Mr Carraro wants it to become an Olympic sport, possibly for the 2032 games in Brisbane. Why the boom? Padel’s underarm serve, forgiving rackets and small courts make it easy to learn. Money talks, too. Roughly three padel courts can fit into the footprint of a single tennis court, creating more cash for clubs. The explosion in demand has meant Britain’s courts are among the busiest, and priciest, in the world. The median fee of an indoor court is £44 ($59) per booking, though some in London can cost £100 an hour. But a sport that is fun to play is not necessarily fun to watch. Rob Mitchell, Premier Padel’s commercial director, dismisses such concerns. The 4,000 or so tickets for the final in London quickly sold out. The sport still has some catching up to do. Tennis had 5.6m players in Britain at last count in 2023, and Wimbledon had total prize money of £64m this year. The LTA is optimistic that the rise of padel is complementing not cannibalising tennis. But fashions change: Wimbledon itself began life as a croquet club. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/03/millions-play-padel-will-anyone-watch- it
If you want to understand modern Britain, listen to BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine’s show is a microcosm of Britain Aug 6th 2026 What do Britons care about? Forget the pollsters and their charts on topics like immigration and the economy. To know what really occupies the minds of the British day to day, instead read the descriptions of BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show, which runs on weekdays from 12pm to 2pm. One recent programme examined “Iran and chicken welfare”. Another, last December, explored “pornography and garden centres”. To read them is like combing through Britain’s subconscious. Video, as the 1979 pop song had it, was supposed to have killed the radio star. It has not done so in Britain. Nor, more surprisingly, have podcasts or smartphones. Overall, the country listens to about as much radio as it did 20
years ago: around 1bn hours a week. And Britain’s most popular channel is Radio 2, a BBC station which offers a mix of music and talk. The reasons for this are revealing not merely about radio but about modern Britain. Radio 2 is unusual: not all BBC stations have fared so well. The corporation, which until 1972 held a legal monopoly on the British airwaves, has seen its audience numbers fall rapidly in recent years. The once influential BBC Radio 1, which describes itself somewhat un-youthfully as “a youth music station”, has lost almost half of its listeners since 2000. Radio 2, by contrast, is thriving: it remains Britain’s biggest single station, with almost 14% of all listening hours spent in its company. Part of Radio 2’s appeal is simple: it is easy to listen to. It was designed to be such. The early BBC was imbued with a guiding belief in the civilising effects of radio. The Light Programme (the precursor of Radio 2) was created to act as a widely cast audio net that would capture audiences’ attention with light entertainment before drawing them towards the “high” culture of stations such as the Home Service (now Radio 4) and the Third Programme (now Radio 3). Such lightheartedness won radio a certain scorn among some intellectuals, prompting George Orwell, himself a BBC broadcaster, to advise his fellow literary types to pay more attention to this “much-despised medium”. Radio 2 remains cheerfully unpretentious. This can be seen in its characteristically poppy and home-grown music choices (a mix of the Beatles, Duran Duran and Dua Lipa). It can also be seen in its presenters, who are—on air, at least—mostly inoffensive and jovial. But its shamelessly middlebrow focus is demonstrated most plainly by the Jeremy Vine show, Britain’s biggest current-affairs radio programme. Fronted by Radio 2’s longest-serving presenter, it encapsulates the formula for the station’s successes. The programme oscillates between sophistication and silliness. At one moment a defence expert might school listeners on the strategic value of the Strait of Hormuz. Minutes later, enthusiasts might celebrate the resurgence of tenpin bowling. “You’re either good at bowling or you’re good in bed,” explained one guest, live from a bowling alley.