CULTURE

Secretary Matt Hancock did his bit for the entente cordiale when he delivered a speech in French to the Viva Tech conference in Paris yesterday. He even attempted a joke. ‘During one of the first flights of Concorde, a UK-French project, the British Government’s Minister of Technology asked his fellow passenger how he was feeling. He said he was so nervous about travelling on a supersonic aircraft that he’d taken last Communion before the flight. The minister asked what he did for a living. He said, “I’m one of the engineers.”’