Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Thanks to wider broadcast deals and streaming sites, sports fans the world over can catch up on the best of global games such as football.

But here's the paradox. All that choice means viewers have dwindling attention spans.

And that is driving change in the sports themselves.

And the designation of halal usually has to do with foods. But in Indonesia, the

world's most populous Muslim nation, lots of manufacturers are angling for halal status,

a marketing-friendly blessing for products ranging from pianos to sex toys.

First up, though.

Britain's Parliament begins its work this week with distinct feelings of

deja vu and anti-climax clinging to the House of Commons.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had hoped to persuade members of Parliament

to vote for his fresh Brexit divorce deal with the European Union.

He told members it was high time to get Brexit done.

The House will need no reminding that this is the second deal and the fourth vote

three and a half years after the nation voted for Brexit.

And during those years, friendships have been strained, families divided,

and the attention of this house consumed by a single issue that has at times felt incapable of resolution. But one recently ejected member of Mr. Johnson's

Conservative Party had other ideas. Sir Oliver Letwin worried that if the House passed the motion

to approve Mr. Johnson's deal, all the other necessary legislation might not get through in time

for Britain's current deadline

to get out of the EU in 10 days. The Prime Minister has a strategy. I fully accept that, and I accept

that it is rational in its own terms. It is that he wants to be able to say to any waiver us,

...